Right to Rule
by Sable Scribe
Summary: Kagome's always known about her abilities as a miko, in fact she's close to mastering them. So when she meets one Asakura Yoh, she decides she needs a new challenge, who knew being a shaman could be that interesting? AU Pairing Undecided
1. The Girl Who Finds a New Path

Don't own InuYasha or Shaman King.

Beta: Romantic Princess, BloodCherry

Thank you ladies!

AN: Kay, I'm going to have a poll up for the next week or three. Kagome is going to have a few spirits, so I'm going to let you guys decide on some of them! I also would like to ask you guys about Kagome pairing for this story, I'm not really sure who I want her with so please vote yeah? (This will all be on my profile)

Chapter 1

The sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon when a young woman was waking from a long night's sleep at a nearby shrine. The Higurashi family had finally returned to Tokyo to live at the shrine of their forefathers. The last few years both of the Higurashi children, Souta and Kagome, had been training with their father and grandfather to understand the shamanic arts. After the elder Higurashi passed away due to age, the family returned home.

Now both youngsters were getting used to living in the city once again. "Otou-chan, Obaa-chan, I'm going to see Oka-chan and Oji-chan! Ja'ne!" Kagome rushed from her home, down the steps, and toward the graveyard just a few blocks away.

She could only smile as she came to the Karasu Cemetery; quite a few Higurashi's were buried there. Bending down, she dropped a Camellia flower upon the grave markers before her. "Ne, Oka-chan, Jii-chan, the family has finally unpacked at the shrine. I don't know how things are going to be at school, but I hope I can make some friends who believe in the same things as me! But I don't know how to act around them."

It was hard coming to places like this, especially when she couldn't chat! There were so many spirits here, more than she'd seen when she'd been training. Sighing, she ran onward waving at the stone were part of her grandfather's ashes laid.

Hua Higurashi sighed; her daughter hadn't even waited for her to speak… that was shameful. But she could honestly say that she was indeed worried about her little girl. She'd been such a cheerful little one, but she'd become so reserved in the last few years.

O

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Looking about, Kagome sighed as she neared her knew school, Shinra Private Academy. Walking forward, Kagome only mourned the loss of her home schooling as it was much more preferable than coming to a normal, human school. It wasn't that she had anything against it. It was just hard making friends with people who didn't believe in spirits or those who had called her a monster as a child for her abilities with spiritual energy.

Looking up she smiled at the classroom sign before waiting a bit, worried about the comments coming from the inside of the room.

"I really saw it! There were ghosts in the cemetery; they were watching the stars!"

"No, I doubt your head Manta," a boy responded.

"What? This is me we're talking about, do you doubt what I saw!"

Opening the door, she looked at them while they returned the look. "What cemetery are you talking about?" Kagome blushed while four of her new classmates seemed to stare her down for even asking.

"Ah, you believe me?" The smallest boy asked his eyes wide with surprise.

"Hmm, it would be hard for me not to believe." She easily answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've been in training to be a miko for as long as I can remember. So it would be illogical of me not to believe in the spirits of the dead." Several sets of eyes turned to her small form, Kagome simply blinked in surprise "What did I do?"

"You're a miko?"

"No way, get out!"

"Can you make charms and stuff?" A female voice asked.

Kagome found herself blushing several shades of red; why were they so excited about her being a miko?

Just as the questions really started pouring in, the teacher yanked open the door. "Shut up and get in your seats. Homeroom is starting, and you," he pointed at Kagome, "get up here!"

Kagome 'epped' before complying and standing were the teacher was pointing (which was right next to his desk) slightly embarrassed. Was she supposed to wait outside?

"As you can see we have a new student, but there's another one in the hallway."

A boy a few inches taller than herself stepped in. He had shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, and orange headphones. He settled beside her in the front of the class.

"This is Asakura Yoh, he's from Izumo and came by himself. The girl is Higurashi Kagome, she's originally from Tokyo, but has been in Hokkaido for the last several years. I want you to treat them well considering that they are new to this school."

Suddenly the voice of the small blond boy from before rang out. "That's him, the kid with the ghosts!" He'd startled most of the class.

"There's no such thing as ghosts… who are you anyway?"

Kagome blinked in surprise at the comment before looking to the boy standing next to her; why would he say that? And why had the class gotten into such an uproar over the statement? And so, for the next several hours, Yoh slept through the noise and confusion of the class while Manta simply added to it trying to get the others in his class to believe him.

At the end of the class Kagome could only raise an eyebrow at Manta as he began his stalking of Yoh. "Oyamada-san…" She began.

"Ah, yeah?"

"Do you really think this will give you the answers you want?"

Manta blinked in surprise before nodding.

"Do you mind if I come along? It's been a long time since I've been in Tokyo, and the two of you seem interesting." Kagome asked amused.

"Yeah, sure, but you have to call me Manta."

"Alright, then you have to call me Kagome."

And so the stalking began; Kagome mostly stayed quit, only giggling at Manta's antics, but eventually they were caught. Yoh wasn't completely deaf, but she'd been wondering considering how loud the small blond was being.

"I knew it was you," he said looking at Manta. "But I didn't expect you," Yoh looked at Kagome curiously.

"So you're not mad?

"Nah, you came because I pretended not to know you, right?"

Manta simply nodded in surprise.

"But I didn't want anyone to know my secret."

"Secret?"

"Yeah, I came here to train. See I'm a shaman."

Kagome had been sitting there silently for a while enjoying the patch of grass and the conversation behind her, but that bombshell caught her attention more than anything else could. When Kagome spun around she found herself on all fours almost nose to nose with the headphone-wearing boy. "Really?" She asked.

Yoh's eyes widened before he nodded surprised at the sudden move.

"Yeah! I'm not the only one then!" Kagome was excited before sitting back on her calves extremely happy; it had been a long time since someone with powers like hers was anywhere near her age!

Yoh blinked before an eyebrow rose. "You're a shaman?"

"No; I have the capacity to be a shaman, but I have no real training on that front. I'm a miko!"

Manta sighed; why were they telling their secrets?

"Really?"

"Yup!"

"Okay, what exactly is a shaman and how does being a miko give you the ability to be either?" Manta questioned.

The two spiritualists looked to each other before Yoh replied, "A shaman is a person who binds this world with the next. A miko on the other hand does something a bit different."

"Yeah, our calling is a bit different from shamans. We serve the gods — we are the mediators between humans and the gods, a bit like messengers. My family has served many gods, local and otherwise. But we specialize in healing and barriers as well. And really, if you have any spiritual ability you can do just about anything such as being a miko, or a regular shaman like Asakura-kun, and so on and so forth."

"If you ever need any help you can come to me, Manta." Yoh stated simply before he began to leave before glancing at the dark haired girl. "You too." And he was rewarded with one of the biggest smiles he'd ever seen before waving and heading home.

Kagome just watched, amused. "Manta, are you going to be okay with all of this?"

"Yeah… I'll see you tomorrow, Kagome," he said before moving onward toward his cram school.

Kagome could only smile to herself; this was going to be exciting. She'd never really had a chance to make friends before, though she wasn't certain if they were friends. The only people who'd ever given her the time of day besides her parents and family were the spirits that they'd come into contact with.

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It would be a good, long walk before she'd get home, and now she was going to figure out how to convince her father to allow her to follow a different path.

Once she returned home she was questioned extensively by her father, Haru, and her grandmother, Kaede. When she spoke of meeting a shaman, she could only narrow her eyes at the unspoken words between the two. What weren't they telling her?

"Kagome, I don't think it's a good idea to hang out with this boy… he could be headed for trouble."

"Otou-chan… I want to be a shaman."

"Absolutely not!" Kaede barked out.

"Why?"

"Being a shaman is dangerous, Kagome," her father continued.

"So is being a miko; kami-dono's likes to make us do dangerous things!"

"No, Kagome it's simply not a good idea."

Kagome simply huffed, before leaving… they wouldn't even let her explain or explain their reasons why she shouldn't go near Asakura! She'd felt something, something much more intimate in the cemetery this morning with all those wandering spirits than she had in the four years she'd been in constant contact with the gods.

Was it wrong to want that kind of touch or comfort? She didn't even know what to think. "I'm going for a walk I'll be back later."

The two adult Higurashi's simply sighed watching the back of their little girl as she left. She was growing up and neither was sure what to do about it.

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It was a good many hours later before Kagome found herself back at Karasu Cemetery for the second time that day in front of her family member's headstones all the while wondering exactly what she wanted to say.

"Okaa-chan, will you come out?" Kagome looked up at the spirit of her mother; she'd been a lovely woman in her lifetime. With her large, expressive violet-blue eyes twinkling with amusement, blue-black hair that fell softly around her ears. The only thing that had never been answered when asked about was the strange yin-yang tattoo that seemed to hug the curve of her mother's neck.

"What is it Kagome-chan?"

"Obaa-chan and Otou-chan are trying to stop me from doing something I really want."

"And what do you want to do, Nyanko?"

"I want to train to be a shaman."

Hua promptly squealed with laughter.

"Moh! Okaa-chan, why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm sorry, Kagome; it seems you inherited something from both your grandfather and I."

When Kagome simply stared, Hua Higurashi smiled. "Your Jiji and I were both shamans, Kagome. Admittedly, I was of a different sect than the Japanese branch that is here, but we both had similar talent…"

"Then why are they trying to stop me?"

"Do they ever try to consult me?"

"I don't know, Okaa-chan. I assumed they did. So do you talk to them like you do me?"

Hua simply shook her head before grumbling out, "Tell them you have my consent and Jiji's, too."

"Okay, I will." Kagome smiled brightly. Those darn hypocrites, now there was no way they were going to stop her. Hmmph! Keeping something like that from… her how could they?

Kagome sighed before her head shot up. Who was screaming? And why? Rushing upward, she gasped as she realized it was Manta!

"What are you doing? Stop it!"

Ryu and his gang looked up; before them was a relatively small but pretty young girl looking at them as if they had lost their minds.

"Shoo little girl, this isn't your place."

"You shoo! This is as much my place as anyone else's'! And what are you doing? Destroying headstones and such… that's insulting to those who rest there." There was a large frown marring her face.

"Look kid, this is our best place, so leave. I need to teach this brat some manners."

"Leave Manta alone. He was meeting me here, so if you want to hit someone hit me."

Every single one of them paused to stare at her, Manta included. "Why would you meet at a graveyard? That's a strange place for a date!" Ryu looked at the girl, with confusion.

"It's not a date, my family is here."

"Really, what's your name?"

Kagome paused watching as Manta scrambled away, "Kagome."

"Your whole name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just answer me!" Ryu shouted, hitting the girl in the face with his sword.

Kagome gave a cry of shock; there was a lot of pain in her cheek and it was hot and sticky from blood. "H…Higurashi…"

Ryu nodded when some of his men moved. Kagome did as well; grabbing Manta's hand she took off to the sound of them shouting and the crash of headstones as they were knocked over. The one glance that she'd allowed back had been heart breaking — both her mother's and grandfather's headstones were on the ground at this point.

"Are you okay, Manta?"

"Why did… why did you do that, Kagome?"

"I had to do something. I mean they hurt you really badly! Now come on, we're going to see my Obaa-chan."

"Thank you. But you could have gotten hurt badly, worse than now!"

"Manta, people help out their friends, right?"

The blonde only nodded as they continued their walk.

"You're the first friend that I've ever had, so of course I want to help you!"

A small smile flickered across his face. "Thanks Kagome."

"You're welcome"

Manta sighed all the while following. What surprised him was that not too many blocks away was a large wooded area in which a huge set of steps could be seen. He thought he was going to die getting to the top!

"Obaaaaa!"

Kaede huffed, moving from her chair in the living room she found her granddaughter and an extremely small boy that could possibly be a Koro Pokkuru. Shaking the thought aside she looked at her grandchild. The gash across her face was rather large, just inside her ear to the bridge of her nose. It was bleeding rather heavily from what she could tell.

"Child, what happened?"

"Well, after I got into the argument with you and Tou, I went to see Oka and Oji. These older bullies were hurting Manta, and I got in the way…" Kagome shifted uncomfortably as her grandmother gathered material to clean the wound before proceeding to heal it. Healing it completely would hurt Kagome's, or anyone's for that matter, own immune and healing system. Instead there was a relatively thin but long scab running across her face.

"Kagome, don't lie. If it hadn't been for you things would have been much worse! You saved me!"

Kaede simply sighed as she moved on to the small boy, removing dirt and things from his hands and face and repeated the healing process. "Manta, your wrist is going to hurt for a day or so, alright?" The older woman continued wrapping.

"Hey Kagome, I thought you guys can heal?"

"Well, because of the way we heal, it would be more harmful than helpful if we didn't let the body heal some of the damage on its own. When someone is healed repeatedly by holy energy one of two things can happen. It can help someone's immunity and natural healing capacity by speeding things up, or it can hurt them really badly by slowing it down to a crawl. So for most small things like this, we let it heal naturally. That and it lets your body get off the natural high of extra energy, which is why even I don't get to lose this lovely reminder."

"Ah. Why is that?"

They two youngsters simply watched and waited as Manta's hand was wrapped.

"Because our healing abilities were meant to be used on Kami-sama's when they reincarnated on earth."

Manta paused to stare at the two of them, were they serious?

The two mikos shared an amused smile, "So Manta why were you at Karasu?"

"I was trying to catch Yoh with spirits on camera."

Suddenly two voices young and old roared into laughter. "I'm sorry child but the spirits don't appear on a camera unless they wish to."

"Oh, alright then… well I should go. I should have been home awhile ago."

"Bye Manta!" The Higurashi women stated escorting the small boy out before waving as he left the shrine.

Later that evening it took Kagome less than ten minutes to convince her father and grandmother to at least allow her to try her own path. She also chided them for not visiting Hua more often. They were the living ones, besides they need to get out of the house more!

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Kagome groaned, it was official… she hated school 6 days a week! Come on, who came up with that idea? Not only that, but for several hours a day, just wasn't worth it.

Sighing, she watched as Manta's "friends" continued to make fun of him. That wasn't right, was it?

"Hey, why don't you leave him alone? You shouldn't make fun of him like that." Kagome stated. Her face had lost all it's usually jolliness to be replaced by an expression of someone that seemed far older and far wiser than the students before her.

"Ghosts do exist." Yoh stated coming up behind her. Looking at the small girl in front of him he wanted to wince at the long slash across her face. He'd heard all about what had happened the day before.

Manta snorted. "What cemetery, guys?"

"You're Manta and Kagome, right?"

Kagome was going to nod, she swore she was, but when Yoh grabbed both her and Manta's wrists and proceeded to drag the two of them away toward Karasu, she knew this day was just going to get more interesting.

"Ah, ah, Asakura-kun, please stop. What are you doing?"

"I'm going to confront those guys who hurt you!"

"You can't, Yoh! Those guys are crazy. And strong! Why would you even bother?" Manta yelled as the high speed drag continued.

"Because I'm helping my friends."

"Asakura-kun, do you mean that?"

Yoh stopped briefly before looking in to shocked blue eyes. "Yeah, my grandfather told me that people who can see spirits aren't bad. I now you can both see them, so you're my friends now." When his pausing was over he was once more dragging the two of them to Karasu Cemetery.

"Asakura-kun, should you really be fighting them? I mean they seem really dangerous! What if you get hurt?" Kagome questioned.

"Yeah, not to mention you shouldn't be dragging us toward our doom!"

"Kagome," Yoh said and Kagome's head tilted to the side at the soft smile on his face. "I have someone who's going to back me up. Besides, if I get hurt you'll fix me up, right?" Yoh teased lightly, wanting to tease her even more when a soft blush ran across her cheeks. She really was cute… "Besides I have someone who's willing to help!"

The two abductees glanced at each other; what was he talking about?

Ryu scowled at the display before him, what the heck were those two doing back? "I thought I told you two not to come back!"

"You know my friends from the other world aren't very happy with you," Yoh started

"What? Ghosts? Are you serious?" One of the boys asked as he openly laughed at the three of them.

"In fact some of them really want to fight you!"

Both Kagome and Manta promptly moved away from battle, and both were surprised by who was helping Yoh. It was a stunning, 600-year-old Samurai! Kagome thought it was extremely exciting whereas Manta seemed to be terrified. Kagome wasn't sure why the samurai fellow "felt" like a perfectly nice guy to her.

"Oh, wow it's Amidamaru! That's so awesome!"

"Kagome! How can you say that? He's supposed to be a crazy murderer!"

"Manta not everything is as written in the history books, besides the winner is the one who gets to write the story. Don't you think Amidamaru would have lost? I mean he's pretty young looking to be dead."

"Are you defending him because he's cute?"

"Manta! No!" An aggravated sigh was released from her throat. She wasn't that shallow darn it!

During the fight, Kagome couldn't help herself and she had to cheer on both Yoh and Amidamaru! It was really impressive. She didn't know many people who could turn a wooden grave marker into something that dangerous.

"Kagome don't cheer him on, he's going to kill him!"

"Nah, he's just going to teach him a lesson! Wow this is like all those Shonen cartoons Souta likes to watch on Sunday, with all the trash talking and stuff."

Manta sweat-dropped. Were all mikos like this?

She watched as he took out the first two weirdoes before smacking the wooden sword user in the face. That was going to really hurt in the morning.

After the ringleader of the monkeys was defeated, she found herself in shock but content at the same time. She needed to learn to be a shaman if only to protect herself. She'd been attacked more than once by something from the spiritual plane. Some spirits weren't as nice as Amidamaru and wouldn't care if she was a priestess or not.

Kagome smiled. "Yoh… that was amazing!"

Manta was just stunned. He'd never seen anything like it!

"Thanks Kagome."

"I know this is weird, but can you help me become a shaman, too?"

"Why would you want to do that?" Yoh blinked, he liked his priestess friend just as she was.

"Yeah, Kagome, I mean you have awesome abilities right now, don't you?"

"Well, I think it's awesome. And apparently my mother and grandfather were shamans, too! There are a lot of reasons why, you know?" Kagome was beginning to fidget under their stares. Why did they have to do that?

"I suppose I can help you…" Yoh thought over it. There were some things he could teach her… like how to pull a soul into yourself like he'd done with Amidamaru, but he was really only in the beginning stages as well.

"That's great! Thank you, Yoh!" Kagome gave the boy a quick hug, extremely excited.

"No problem." Yoh smiled lazily, a bit surprised by the hug. When they'd been in class together she seemed really standoffish, maybe she was shy?

"I've got to go; I still have barrier training for tonight."

"You can do them?" Manta asked.

"Yeah, but they're my weak point. Once I complete this assignment, I'll have a comprehensive knowledge of how to train my children should they have the abilities of a miko. Bye guys, I'll see you tomorrow." The raven haired girl waved before rushing off leaving the boys on their own.

"Does she seem happier to you?" Manta asked curiously; she was getting livelier the longer they were around each other.

"Well it's nice to have friends," Yoh replied. "See ya, Manta."

Manta sighed as he looked to either side of him. His adventures into the spiritual weren't going to be a one-time thing. He honestly couldn't wait to see tomorrow.


	2. They Who Find Spirits

I don't own it. I wish I did!

Beta: BoxingBunny, RomanticPrincess, BloodCherry

Chapter 2

They Who Find Spirits

Kagome sighed; she was laid out in the grass on one of the hills in Karasu Cemetery. The sun was high and there wasn't a cloud anywhere in the sky. Days like this were perfect or at least pretty darn close. Yoh was next to her, resting against a tree while Manta was looking around in disbelief.

"Nature sure feels great…"

"Hmm I agree… this is a good place for a nap." Kagome stretched lazily, much like a cat. She'd been lying in the sun in this one spot for a while. She hadn't expected to see either of the boys that day, but hey, she didn't mind.

Manta frowned while staring down at both of them. "This… is… NOT… natural," he grumbled, he found himself doing that a lot between the two of them.

"Manta, if you're going to hang around a cemetery and you have enough spiritual ability to see ghosts, what do you really expect?" Kagome questioned a bit curious; she'd rolled on her stomach to look at the two of them with her feet were waving carelessly in the air.

Yoh frowned. "It's part of being a shaman. You're going to have to get used to it."

"Kagome-chan!"

Kagome shot up. "Okaa-chan, how are you?"

"Well, rather fine dear. I mean, I'm a spirit, sweetie — not much can hurt me."

Kagome sighed, "I know." But she blushed when she realized that the two boys were staring at her with surprise. "Guys, this is my okaa-chan, Hua Higurashi. Okaa-chan, these are the two boys I was telling you about, Asakura Yoh and Oyamada Manta."

The pretty spirit waved happily. "It's nice to meet the two of you!"

Manta gaped, "Your… mom?"

"Yeah. Okaa-chan died about 4 years ago, but as you can see she wanted to stay, so she did."

"Why did you stay, Higurashi-san?" Manta asked more than a little curious; even Yoh in his usual apathy looked intrigued.

"Well, it was simple really. I had several reasons I wanted to stay. I told Haru I would always wait for him. And I promised Kagome-chan to be there for her wedding and first child. I couldn't do that if I weren't here, correct?" Hua asked a warm smile on her face.

"Okaa-chan, you don't have to stay."

"I know, dear. And why didn't you bring these two before? They are extremely cute!"

"Okaa!" Kagome's cheeks seemed to burn. Why did her mother do this?

Yoh laughed while Manta blushed.

"Now don't 'okaa' me, dear. So have you had any luck in finding a spirit?"

Kagome sighed before shaking her head negatively.

"Why do you need spirits?" Manta asked.

"It's part of training," Yoh began.

"A shaman's rank is based on their spirits and how well a shaman can use them to complete a task. As such, when you have gathered spirits to accomplish any task, then one can be acknowledged as a true shaman." Hua finished.

"Is that why you came to Tokyo, Yoh? Because of the all of different spirits?" Manta questioned.

"Yeah, there are a lot of worthy spirits that have strong feelings here in Tokyo. So let's be friends," a lazy smile was sent toward the ancient samurai.

"Friends?" Amidamaru look extremely surprised.

"Yeah, your sword play is amazing, sooo… "

"I must decline your offer. We had a similar goal; it was met and I have no intentions of leaving this place."

"Don't be stingy!"

Manta gaped before dragging Yoh away while Kagome simply watched giggling. "You know, Amidamaru, he's not going to give up that easily."

The Samurai simply nodded, looking toward the direction the two had run off.

"Oh, and your new grave maker should be here soon." Kagome smiled again.

Amidamaru blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Well since most of the Higurashi grave markers were knocked over by that jerk, my family decided to replace them. You don't have any living family around, so we decided to fix yours, too."

"Thank you Kagome-san, but it wasn't required."

"Don't worry about it, besides you never know when you'll decide to help out another random shaman-in-training. I'll see you later! I'm going to see what those two are up to." Kagome waved before rushing off.

"She's a good girl, ne?" Hua asked.

"Your family did well, Hua-san."

"I think we did, Amidamaru. But I do have a request. Watch over my girl, I think you're going to be spending a lot of time with her and those boys."

"Hn."

Hua giggled before drifting over to speak with some of the other spirits. Yep, she did think Yoh was going to get his way. He seemed like he would be stubborn about certain things, and this seemed like one of them.

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When Kagome finally found them she frowned. "Why did you drag Yoh out here, Manta?"

"That guy is vicious! I mean, he killed hundreds of men! He seems really dangerous," Manta cried, these two were nuts!

"I don't think you can compare 600 years ago to current day. I mean, it was nothing but war and chaos back then, he probably had to. Besides, Amidamaru makes me feel warm and comforted when I'm near him. And his aura is good."

"That's what I said; he didn't feel evil when we joined," Yoh muttered.

"See, Manta? I think Yoh would feel it if he had an evil spirit running around in his body."

"Why would you think that, Kagome?"

"Heehee, I've been possessed or at least controlled before… "

"WHAT?" Manta yelled rather shocked.

"How did that happen?"

Nervous laughter erupted from the petite girl. "Well, when I was a lot younger and hadn't had any training, I didn't know how to keep the spirits at bay. It was an angry one and tried to get me to do something dangerous. After that any spirits that had that sort of feeling to them I've always been really careful about."

"That wasn't lucky," Manta said surprised, but he had to wonder what the spirit tried to make Kagome do.

"Nope. So Yoh, what are you doing tomorrow?" Kagome wondered aloud.

"Going to Funbari Archives to dig up some information."

"Why are you doing that?" Manta asked.

"It's a good way to get more information about Amidamaru, right Yoh?"

"Yeah. Kagome, you're pretty informed about shamans. Why did you decide to wait this long?"

"Well, I had a really good connection with the gods so my training started there. But I feel more comfortable with earthly spirits… "

Manta could only sigh and listen. There was so much he didn't know about this new supernatural world, but he sure had learned a lot about all this from Kagome and Yoh. Heck, Hua was completely willing to sit down and have talks with them. It was sort of interesting to talk to a willing adult.

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"Wow… this is amazing, Yoh."

"Yeah, Harusame huh? This is the sword that Amidamaru used."

"What are you looking for, Yoh? I mean there isn't any information… so let's go, its boring."

"Well, if I learn about the sword I can learn about Amidamaru. And I can ask this guy," Yoh stated pointing to the ghost sitting on top of the display case.

"Where did he come from?"

Kagome simply blinked; she hadn't felt a thing until Yoh had pointed the guy out to her. That just wasn't fair. Kagome pouted to herself slightly; she was going to have to get better!

"I'm Mosuke, the swords creator. How is it that you are able to see me?"

"Well we have reasons, got some time?" Yoh asked.

"I have nothing but time."

"Oh, so you know about Harusame then?" Kagome pondered out loud.

"Hai, I am the man who killed its owner."

"The demon?" Manta asked a scared look on his face.

"Stupid! He ain't a demon! We were best friends. We lived through famine and a number of other things together before we were hired by a lord; Amidamaru as a samurai and myself as a black smith. For a time things were peaceful, then the lord ordered my death so that a blade greater than Harusame could not be created. Amidamaru refused and told me to run, but there was a spy. I was killed before I could return my new blade to him."

Kagome sniffled as tears seemed to form. "That's so awful, Mosuke-san! You shouldn't blame yourself. What occurred was awful, yes… but if there is anyone to blame it's that lord who caused this." Would she be able to do something like that? Be brave enough to even try something like that?

"Well, let's go give him Harusame, Mosuke." Yoh smiled lightly.

"He's still waiting on you…" Manta seemed in awe, to think that you would wait for someone for 600 years was astounding.

"I can't go see that idiot with Harusame looking like this!"

"Well let's fix it," Yoh grinned. Within seconds Mosuke was a hitodama and being pushed into Yoh's chest.

"Alright, to the nearest black smith!"

Kagome laughed at the antics and drama. Only being with these two did such interesting things happen. It would be several hours later that they would once again find themselves at Karasu Hill Cemetery.

O

O

O

"That idiot waited for me, hm?"

"Ne, Amidamaru, does that mean you're an idiot too? You waited on him…" Kagome asked laughter could easily be heard in her voice.

Yoh snorted in response before waiting, hoping that Amidamaru would agree to be his partner.

"I suppose my time here isn't done, is it? Besides I have a new purpose, hm?"

Manta sighed. It was just so interesting the way things seemed to happen around Yoh.

"Congratulations, Yoh. I told you, didn't I Amidamaru, that you would be staying with them?" Hua smiled amused.

"Hai, hai," the samurai waved, a slightly suspicious look in his eyes.

"Ahh… I'm jealous, Yoh. I have a spirit I talk to a lot, but she doesn't want to partner with me at all," Kagome pouted.

"Who dear?" Hua asked.

"Go-san. She's so pretty and strong, I want to be like her."

Hua laughed, "Is she still mad at you?"

"No, she's mad at Otou-chan."

Manta raised a brow. "Who is Go-chan?"

"Oh, Go-chan is the Goshinboku at our shrine."

"That's a strong spirit, Kagome." Yoh commented, all the while glancing at Amidamaru.

"Yeah, but not like Amidamaru, ne?" Kagome asked a sly amused expression on her face. She'd had fun helping them.

Yoh nodded. "Yeah, Amidamaru and I are going to be great."

"How can you tell if a spirit is strong or not?" Manta asked.

"By the strength of the feelings that the spirit feels. Manta, if you're so curious about shamans and other spiritualists like Itako or Miko you should come to the shrine. We have information on many forms of shamanism, even some that are from Europe and Africa…" Kagome commented with an eye brow raised. Why would Yoh shudder when she said Itako?

"That's sounds interesting, Kagome. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Not at all. Yoh, you're welcome to come to!" Kagome smiled at the two of them.

"I can come by next week if you want," Yoh replied. He didn't really have anything to do.

"'Kay. But I still don't know what to do about Go-chan." Kagome sighed.

"Why is she mad at your father, Kagome?" Manta asked.

"Oh, Otou-chan hacked off one of her branches."

"What? You mean Go-chan is actually a tree?" Manta was confused he thought the spirits had to be dead. "And I thought you had to use dead spirits?"

"Well yeah… I mean, come on—Goshinboku is literally the God Tree. She was blessed by the gods. And no, not really; spirits of nature like Go-chan aren't really dead." A small frown was on Kagome's face.

"There so much I don't understand about this." Manta grumbled to himself. It just wasn't fair.

"Well, I'm off. I'm going to try and convince Go-chan to be one of my partners!" She couldn't help but feel excited; the thought of having more friends, whether they be spirits or humans, had never really bothered Kagome before.

"See ya," Yoh waved watching Kagome walk away. She was an interesting person, that was for sure.

"I suppose I'll see you at the Higurashi shrine later then?" Manta gave a small smile at the nodding Yoh. Next Sunday was going to be really interesting he thought to himself.

O

O

O

Kagome sighed. She was really bored. It was a Sunday, there wasn't any school, and neither Yoh nor Manta had shown up for the day. She was half-way tempted to call the two of them to ask where the heck they were, but that would make her seem over anxious, wouldn't it? Not only that but her obaa-chan was bound and determined to keep her away from being a shaman, which was really silly considering their actions of speaking with the gods was a type of shamanism. (Kagome wasn't crazy enough to point that out to her.)

"Ne, Go-chan, are you still mad at Tou-chan?" Kagome asked eyeing the tree spirit who was currently relaxing, lying across the branches of her home.

"Hmm no, not really. Do you still want wish for me to be your partner?" Go asked deep green eyes holding a shimmer of excitement.

"Of course! We've gotten a lot better, the question is what type of weapon do you feel comfortable using? I mean our defense is nearly air tight. So what about staffs?" Kagome sighed as she rested her chin on the top of her broom; she should really be cleaning.

"I can see staffs working. In fact, there should be a staff in one of the sheds. There is also a pudao from one of my branches; I rather liked that weapon," Go murmured softly looking, at the small priestess still on one of the walkways. The furyoku that swirled around the girl was amazing, and it was also what drew the many spirits of the world toward her. She was destined to do great things.

"Hai, I know. What am I going to do?" Kagome huffed before refocusing on her task,

"That's where I come in, silly. We've managed to combine, and you can use my abilities rather well so far."

Kagome raised an eyebrow. "How are you good at weapons? You're a tree…"

Go smiled impishly. "You're not the first shaman I've worked with. The Mongolians loved me."

Kagome blanched.

Go waved before settling back into her branches for a nap.

O

O

O

Manta sighed as he hurried. Trying to get Yoh to wake up on a Sunday was like trying to win at long-distant sprints.

"Come on, Yoh. Kagome is probably thinking that we ditched her! Let's go," Manta whined.

"Do you even know where to go?" Yoh asked blinking sleepily all the while looking at the smaller blond.

"Yeah, come on," Manta stated content to walk in silence. He'd been to the shrine before, it was a nice place and he was sure that Yoh would like it considering how much the boy talked about enjoying nature.

It had taken them nearly twenty minutes to get there, but it wasn't surprising considering where the shrine was located.

"Geez, no wonder Kagome is in such good shape," Manta muttered. This was more than likely why she'd been able to run as fast as she had.

As the two crested the long staircase they were both a bit dumbfounded to see Kagome in a traditional chihaya, but it was altered a bit. The hakamas were a deep blue that matched her blue eyes while the white kosode was relatively normal, its swinging sleeves were in motion as she swept. Her hair was low and in a ponytail, something neither of them had seen before.

Kagome sighed, looking up. "Oh, you're here! What took you guys so long?"

"Yoh."

"Yeah, me." Yoh blinked again, that outfit made her seem a lot older than she was.

Soft giggled could be heard. "You guys are silly. Go, come out and meet the guys I was talking about."

"Mah, Kagome… I was taking a nap," Go complained not at all happy about being called out.

Both boys went bug-eyed. She was at least as tall as Amidamaru with deep leaf-green eyes that seem to sparkle with amusement while her hair was just as green with thin pink and white flowers woven in. Her skin was similar in color to bark, maybe a bit lighter shade of brown. Her clothing was lacking for most fellows; the garment was completely white and sleeveless with slits at the thighs while it tied in the front with a yellow sash. Both her feet and arms were bear. Go was simply stunning to look at.

"Sorry Go," Kagome smiled amused.

"Wow…" Manta was stunned, that was nuts. This was a tree spirit? She was extremely pretty.

"Yo, nice to meet you." Yoh waved.

Go blinked staring down at the two; they were small, but then again at her height everyone was small. "Nice to meet you, too."

"You look like a super model," Manta commented.

"Ah… thank you. Kagome, what's a super model?"

Kagome promptly began to snicker. "Just show Manta the archive room, please?"

"You're sooo mean, Kagome! Fine, fine… come with me, short one." Go pouted all the while floating toward the back. Manta had to jog just to keep up.

"So how is training going?" Yoh asked.

"Well, Go-chan has agreed to be my partner. And we've done Hyou Gattoi and everything; it's gotten a lot better since you came over last time." Kagome thought about what had happened nearly three days before.

O

O

O

Earlier that week…

Yoh raised a brow, "Kagome, what's really bothering you?"

She sniffled, she was going to cry. "Well, neither of them are really accepting the fact that I want to be a shaman and every time I practice they're really rude about it. So I feel like I'm all alone and the only one who does support me is Souta, but that doesn't go very far because he's so little." By the time Kagome spilled her feelings she was openly crying. She and Yoh had talked about her training before but this was the first time she'd been so emotional. Kagome was usually a relatively strong person both emotionally and physically.

Yoh sighed. He didn't really know how that felt; he'd always had the support of his family. While some of the villagers might have rejected him for being an Asukura, he'd never been on the unwelcoming end of his family. "Hey, don't cry." Yoh pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back gently. "Have you tried talking to them about it?"

Kagome simply nodded her face against his chest. "Well, they said it was okay, but when I tried to talk to them about training, they ignore me. I don't know what to do." Her voice was coming out muffled against the fabric of his shirt.

"It's okay. Come on, let's go talk to them. The more you ignore this the more it's going to hurt you." Yoh glanced at Kagome as she nodded. It made him angry the more he thought about it. They were her family. They were supposed to support her, not hurt her!

Kagome sighed as she walked toward the house before opening one of the side doors, leaving it open before kicking off her shoes. "So you're going to be the mediator, ne?"

"Nah, I'll wait out by the Goshinboku." Yoh smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. Amidamaru simply smiled; he was willing to help out as well, only outside and away from the tension.

"Otou-chan, Obaa-chan!" Kagome called up the steps, all the while headed toward the kitchen.

"What is it?" Kaede asked, as she came down the steps with Haru just steps behind her. Kaede squinted at the boy at the bottom of the steps who was pointing toward their kitchen.

Yoh nodded before exiting; walking toward the Goshinboku he made himself at home.

"I wanted to talk to you about everything that's been happening the last two weeks."

"Kagome, we really don't have…"

"Stop it! Just, stop it!" Kagome had told herself that it was going to be a calm affair, but this was what they'd been doing since she'd decided to become a shaman. "Stop making excuses and listen to me." Her fists were clenched in her lap while her bottom lip was quivering, a sure sign of tears.

Haru sighed as he looked at his sweet little daughter. To be honest, he felt a bit guilty he'd been discouraging his daughter, and it looked like he'd hurt her a bit more than he'd intended to.

Kaede looked to the side of her. She felt it wasn't proper for Kagome to forsake the gods. The girl had a good connection to them.

"I want to be a shaman. I intend to be a shaman to the best of my abilities. If that requires me to leave because the two of you are bound and determined to make me miserable, so be it." Kagome took a deep breath of air, "I had no intentions of quitting my training as a miko, I just intended to pick up a new set of skills." Kagome was currently staring a hole into the table; she was refusing to look at either of them.

Both the Higurashi gaped; this wasn't what they had expected. "Kagome, this will cut into a lot of training to be a miko. You can't be both." Kaede grumbled.

"Then maybe I should just leave, you obviously don't want me here. You made me feel like those jerks in Hokkaido who called me a demon! Unwanted and useless… I hate that feeling and I want nothing to do with it. You don't even treat me like I belong here anymore!" Kagome was openly glaring at them at this point.

Haru sighed. "Kagome, I… I… is this something you can see yourself continuing in the next few years?"

"Yes, Tou."

"Why did you decide to do this?" Kaede asked curious.

"Because the spirits make me feel more comfortable than the gods do; I mean just being near Amidamaru or Go-chan lights up my day. I feel more comfortable with them than anyone else! And when I use the over soul merge with Go, I feel alive. More so than I have in a long time."

"Then I shall give you permission." Haru felt a heaviness in his heart. He wished he could warn his daughter about the things that were coming. The gods knew that this needed to happen and he wished for nothing more than to wrap his daughter up in a nice safe place.

Kaede sighed before nodding; she wasn't happy with the result but she would learn to live with it.

O

O

O

"So things have been a lot easier and I've gotten better at working together with Go. But now I'm sleepy all the time like you," Kagome laughed softly.

Yoh grinned. "Don't cry anymore, though. It causes people to panic."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go rescue Go-chan. Where is Amidamaru?" Yoh lifted his mortuary tablet. "How do you think he would react to Go's clothing?"

Yoh coughed at the question; sometimes she was too mischievous for her own good. "Let's go find out."

Kagome laughed again as she ran ahead of him. Yoh followed at a slower pace, completely continent to simply relax and rest. They had plenty of time for everything else.


	3. Dinner and a Billboard

I don't own anything.

AN: For those of you wondering, a pudao is a chinese spear like weapon.

These are video's if you want to have a better understanding of the weapon.

The weapons in the links are demonstration/competition weapons which is why they are flimsy (Bendy metal! Heeehee!) Normally a pudao is made of steel or other strong metals.

www . youtube . com / watch?v=3Bo0cLzJlAU

www . youtube . com / watch?v=spbdRCPkaF8&feature=related

On another note, I know I told some of you I would be posting a new chapter several weeks ago. Well I've had problem after problem recently from my computer dying in the middle of an unsaved chapter, to just last week being electrocuted and getting four of my fingers burned enough to make typing next to impossible (sadly these are only two examples of the horrible month of May). I'm back up to speed and should be able to get a number of chapters out (hopefully, knock on drywall (I'm outta wood.)) I plan on writing Anbu Lullaby and Rebirth as the next two stories I update with another chapter of Lazy Days.

This chapter had not been beta-ed but I have gone over it to the best of my abilities.

Chapter 3

"Kagome!" A small black blur came running out onto the training ground.

Kagome's head snapped up before she swore long and loudly internally, her Tou-chan would ground her if Souta started swearing.

Yoh's eyes went wide, they'd had fun teasing Amidamaru earlier about Go-chan's lack of clothing. But that had been nearly two hours ago, they had checked in on Manta who seemed to be having a hay day with all the information. Yoh had been surprised as well, the amount of scrolls in the room were stunning, there were recordings dating back to the Nara period! The next twenty minutes was spent trying to convince Yoh to help her train, she finally managed to get him to agree by telling him she'd make him a bento everyday for a week.

And this was how it ended, Yoh had borrowed one of the swords in one of the sheds, while Kagome worked with the pudao made of Go's branches and hardened steel. Kagome could feel the sweat pouring down the back of her neck. Her arms and muscles ached, and she could feel them burn from overexertion.

Yoh didn't look much better, his chin length hair was plastered to his face, his cheeks like hers were pink with the heat inducing exercise. He preferred being lazy by choice, but this was more preferable than being forced to train. Bribery was a much better way to go, but he had to wonder if Kagome's food was any good.

As the fight ended Kagome could only smile as she was tackled by the small flying blur that was extremely happy that she was home. "Hi, Souta I thought you were going to play soccer with Minori and Masaru." Kagome's head tilted slightly to the side in her confusion.

"Ohh…Well they got sick so I wanted to stay with you," Souta's eyes seemed to take on a more innocent quality, while his bottom lip seemed to pucker and pout.

Kagome tried not to giggle, Yoh was chuckling she could hear him vaguely not far from her. But she felt herself soften she wouldn't mind hanging out with her baby brother. He was always there for her. "Hai hai. She hugged her brother closely, spinning him around in the air before setting him down on his feet. "Souta," Kagome smiled when similar blue eyes moved up to meet hers, "This is Yoh Asakura, Yoh this is my baby brother Souta."

Souta blinked before he stared at the older boy, he had a sword in hand and almost looked as cool as his sister. But then again no one was as cool as Kagome, she was like his mom and sister all rolled into one. "Neee, what are you having for dinner tonight?" Big blue eyes looked upwards waiting for the answer.

Kagome only groaned, she didn't want to cook. But if they left it to Tou-chan it would be burnt or fast food, and if it was left to Oba-chan it would be nasty, neither of them could cook very well. "Welll, what do you want?" Kagome replied waiting on the answer.

"Takoyaki," Souta grinned, it wasn't really a dinner food, but he wanted it….or Takoyaki. He loved squid, and octopus. Kagome kept the house stocked with food and did most of the cleaning and cooking, while his father and grandmother took care of the shrine. He sorta felt bad for asking because she never got to go out and have fun like he did.

"Go ask Manta if he wants to stay for dinner, and I'm making more than Takoyaki though…Ah, Yoh do you want to stay for Dinner?" Kagome smiled, slightly embarrassed. Takoyaki was more like a treat or dessert, but then again Souta loved the same foods that she did, she really shouldn't be surprised.

Yoh just grinned, before nodding he would be happy to eat with Kagome's family. It meant he wouldn't have to make his own food, and that was about all a guy could ask for. It wasn't that he hated cooking he was just extremely lazy, "So what are you going to make?" he asked, lazily.

"Probably Tempura, Miso and fried rice." Kagome grinned, before walking toward the weapons shed with the Pudao and Sword in hand. If everything was put back where it was suppose to be, it was always easier to find. Kagome sighed, she was all nasty and sweaty maybe she could get her Oba to watch things so she could get a quick shower. Man, she really missed being able to take nice long soaks in their large bathtub. "Feel free to take a break on the couch, I'm taking a shower, you can get one afterwards right?" Kagome grinned, before dragging Yoh with her.

Yoh sighed as he was dragged, he was going to take a nap. If she was anything like his mother she was going to just sit in the bathtub for an hour, or even longer. When he was finally released he hunted down the coach plopped down and promptly passed out.

O

O

O

Manta huffed, he been at this for several hours and he was more than pleased with the information that he'd gained, and both of Kagome's guardians have been more than willing to answer any and all his questions. They'd even been willing to teach him more about using his own abilities. It was abundantly clear that he didn't have the same capabilities as Yoh or Kagome, but that was to be expected they both had massive amounts of power.

"Psst!"

Manta blinked looking around for the sound, what exactly was that?

"Psst!"

Raising an eyebrow, Manta finally stopped putting the scrolls away to look toward the door. But no one was there, glancing around he finally realized that one of the boxes that had been turned upside down seemed to have moved.

Moving closer, Manta jumped back when the box shot up into the air followed by a loud, roar of laughter. Blinking he looked at the boy, he was obviously young being about four or five but he was taller than Manta! "Ah, hi?" Manta asked, looking at the boy as if he'd lost his mind.

"Hi!" Souta snickered, giving a jaunty wave. "Are you Manta?" Big blue eyes studied the smaller and older boy before him. What he really older than his nee-chan? Why was he so short?

"Yeah….but who are you?" Manta asked more than a little confused.

"Ohh, I'm Kagome's little brother Souta, I'm five. And and, are you really older than Kagome, and why are you so short, and do you wanna stay for dinner?" The younger boy rattled out quickly.

"I don't know if I'm older than Kagome, and I'm short like my dad…and I'll have to ask if I can stay for dinner." Manta replied, a bit surprised at being able to keep up with the rapid fire questions.

"Okay, when ya get done there's a phone in the kitchen. Bye bye!" Souta skipped out, it was time to play video games, maybe he could get that Yoh boy to play with him.

Manta sweatdropped, maybe all the children in Kagome's family were nuts? Shaking his head, he continued to put away the things he'd looked through. Manta continued, until he was finally down to one box, he would have to ask Higurashi-san to put them away, he was too short to reach or even climb, sadly there were no chairs or sturdy boxes.

Content with his work, Manta found himself stretching out before continuing onward to enter the kitchen and calling his mother. After explaining things, she readily agreed that it would be fine for him to stay and spend time with the Higurashi family. After hanging up with his mother, Manta found himself looking for both Yoh and Kagome, after a few minutes of exploring the ancient house, he finally found Yoh passed out on the couch with his shoes kicked off and his normal head phone set sitting on a side table. Raising a brow, Manta shrugged before setting on one of the large plush chairs, man they were extremely comfortable.

Kagome sighed, content she was clean no more nasty sweat, body odor, and the itchiness that came with such physical activity. Content that she was at least presentable, she hurried down the stair only to smile at the boys, "Nee, he really passed out didn't he?" Kagome asked, ignoring the blush on Manta's face.

Manta could only nod his cheeks a flame, he hadn't really paid attention to Kagome when the door upstairs had swung open of the soft downward steps on the stairs echoed throughout the house. When he'd finally looked up he'd been stunned, maybe seeing Kagome in something other than her school outfit was a bad idea she was wearing a short tank stop that was well fitted and showed off that Kagome was already blooming into a woman with decent sized breasts, and a pair of exercise shorts that showed developing hips.

Kagome sighed, "Manta, will you wake Yoh up? Tell him he's free to take a shower, and you are to your covered in dust." Kagome laughed before turning to the kitchen.

Manta was ten shades of red, he'd just been caught staring at his only female friend his mother would be so angry he wasn't suppose to ogle woman like that! Shaking it off, he moved to take a quick shower before waking Yoh.

O

O

O

It had been nearly an hour since the boys took a shower, and they were talking in low tones in the living room while Kagome finished, it wasn't long before the older Higurashi's came in and talked with the two teens while Souta continued his very unhealthy gaming.

"So Manta, what exactly do you plan to do for your future?" Kaede asked, still eyeing the boy he really reminded her of a small earth spirit.

Manta wanted to sigh, "I'll probably take over my father's company when he retires, so I have to keep my studies up." More often than not he found himself disappointed in his father, he was crude and seemingly didn't have any emotion other than the urge to control people.

"What about you Yoh?" Haru asked, his daughter liked both of the boys and it wouldn't hurt to get to know them better. Souta even seemed to like the boys and he tended to play pranks on any of the boys who might like his sister in an attempt to keep them away from dating her.

Yoh sent the older man a lazy smile, "I'm not really sure. I want to live and easy life."

Haru chuckled in amusement, only someone who dealt with ghost could be so nonchalant about the future. There were far too many things that could and would go wrong, when dealing with this type of life.

Souta frowned, " So why does Kagome hang out with you guys anyway?" It wasn't that he was jealous he was just used to have his big sister all to himself.

Both boys shrugged, neither were really sure. Kagome was a sweet girl who enjoyed spending time with them, they didn't really have a reason why she should or shouldn't.

Kaede's eyebrow rose in disappointment, "Why do you hang out with Minori or Masaru, Souta?"

Souta pouted in response, "Because I like being with them…"

"Dinner's ready!" A cry rang out from the kitchen, all of the occupants in the living room moved toward the Kitchen ready to enjoy a great feast. After sitting down to eat the occupants simply enjoyed each other's company, Yoh teasing both Manta and Kagome, all the while they at times got him back. By the time everything was eaten and put away to be washed, Yoh was extremely happy that Kagome was going to be cooking for him for the next week, it was going to be a very delicious week indeed.

Kagome waved the two boys away once they began the journey home, before smiling and making her way upstairs to her bed room. It had been fun, she'd never seen Yoh blush like that either, maybe she should wear more clothing that showed she had a figure. Nah, she'd leave it for home of days off, laughing happily she couldn't wait for tomorrow.

O

O

O

It was two weeks later, at the end of March when the trio were walking, well Kagome was walking beside them cheerily while Manta dragged an extremely sleepy Yoh behind his hurried run. After they had spent the day with her, on Sunday the two boys visited often they both said it was to visit her, but she knew in Yoh's case it was so he could eat good food. Kagome told him the only way he could eat with them every night was if he sparred with her before hand, he'd pouted but finally agreed.

"Dammit Yoh! Your two damn lax about everything! We even have a kendo test this morning!" Manta grouched as he continued to pull him along.

Kagome on the other hand just watched in amusement, one they weren't late Manta's watch must have been wrong and she didn't see how Manta could just drag Yoh along like that, Yoh was like twice Manta's size! But she wasn't about to voice any of her idea's, one it was extremely funny, and Yoh looked really silly and just a bit cute with that sleepy face he was currently showing.

Yoh grumbled to himself a bit before finally replying "What is it really Manta? I still want to sleep, and you just keep on yelling."

Manta scowled he looked like he was ready to pull his hair out, "Don't be stupid!" Manta replied.

Yoh just groaned, he really was tired Kagome was getting better with that damn Pudao of hers and wore his ass out every day. While he didn't protest as much, he still disliked "sparring" though the fact that he got really good food sort of made up for it. " I have a bad feeling about to day just let me go home."

Kagome gave a cry of shock and fear as suddenly the billboard above the store that they were walking by fell. "Yoh!" She could hear Manta screaming again and her own cry of shock and worry as two men moved closer to push the billboard aside. Kagome moved closer to find Yoh staring at them, in something akin to shock before one hand gave a small wave, and saying "Yo," which sounded week and more than just a little horrified.

Kagome moved in front of the boy to help him out of the hole he'd managed to fall into, pulling him up she couldn't help but worry about him. Yoh shivered lightly, he might have been sleepy earlier, but he wasn't anymore in fact he was ready to get to school then he could sleep till lunch. It would only take them ten minutes to get to school and away from the almost accident. Once they arrived all three of them hurried to change into their kendo clothing before converging to talk while the others began to take the test.

"So are you really okay? No cuts or anything?" Kagome asked, standing next to Yoh against one of the walls to wait for Manta to finish his test.

"Yeah, I promise I'm fine. But Manta told me something that bothered me…"

"What?" Kagome glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, he seemed more worried than he was letting on.

Yoh nodded absent mindedly, before crossing his arms replying "Manta mentioned that the billboard kept falling down. No matter how many times they put it up, or however different ways they tried to attach it."

"Ah, do you think it's a spirit? I mean it's not that uncommon…." Kagome muttered, though she didn't remember feeling anything like a human spirit near the store.

Yoh shrugged lightly, it was bothering him to he hadn't felt a thing. Before sighing when he was called to test. He could only grin when he won, Amidamaru was the best spirit ever he helped Yoh do just about everything.

Manta scowled, "AMIDAMuumuum" he'd tried to yell but suddenly two hands were covering his mouth to keep him from yelling.

"Manta do you have to yell about everything?" Kagome asked a frown on her face. "Anyway, tell Yoh I'll meet you guys outside." She walked away she'd only stayed long enough to see how both boys did. After changing Kagome found herself in the middle of a big argument, Yoh was using ghosts on test, and Manta was angry thinking it wasn't right. She bit her lip, she really didn't want to say anything but Yoh had a point it was unlikely that he would go to college unless there was something he really desired.

Amidamaru sighed, "It doesn't seem like Manta understands the difficulty of being a Shaman."

"Do you really blame him?" Kagome asked, she seemed to have a saddened aura while her eyes weren't as shiny and joyous as usual.

"Nah…he puts too much of himself into those test and his studies he can't accept it…what about you Kagome?" Yoh asked.

"I agree with you Yoh, between my miko and shaman training,an d looking after Souta when do I have time to study? I use ghost to…." Kagome was gnawing on her bottom lip, there were so many things to worry about they tended to wear a person out..

Yoh frowned, "Hey Amidamaru will you make sure Manta gets home okay?" he asked looking up at the tall spirit. Amidamaru nodded, trying not to smile Yoh certainly seemed to like Kagome a bit more than normal. "Hey want to help me out?"

Kagome chuckled, "Going to go check out the archives again?"

Yoh nodded, before taking Kagome's hand and running. He could only smile when laughter erupted from the girl behind him as he tugged her along. It took them quite a while to find out what had happened at the bottle shop. Between asking people what had happened to asking the dead who were still bound to their place of death the two teenagers eventually found out what had happened.

"Poor guy, that's…that's such a horrible way to die…"Kagome frowned, sometimes she was just to sensitive to talk to ghosts. She always felt horrible at their deaths, or a type of morbid sympathy with the mourners, her mother had been dead for nearly 4 years, and her grandfather just a year ago, she was used to losing those close to her heart.

"Yeah, I got the paint."

"Yoh, you really are a sweetie…." Kagome smiled at him a small bit of laughter in her voice. Yoh on the other hand just shook his head, to him it was just part of being a professional shaman. "Anyway, what do you want to do with your life?" Yoh asked as they walked toward the shop at a normal walking pace.

"Hmmm, well I want to be a professional in the spiritual arts, and I want to teach others the respect and joy that I find in nature and life…..and you know get married and family after everything is said and done. What about you?" Kagome replied, she really did want to teach she was ready to show others what the spiritual art were and that there was nothing devilish or demonic about them.

"The same really, I'm more interested in putting spirits to rest, so many of them are just bound to earth after what happened in life. They really have nothing hear save turn into demons." Yoh muttered, before noticing Kagome's look of slight terror. "You've met demon's before haven't you?" He asked calmly.

Kagome just nodded before shaking, "Only once…..it was possibly the scariest things I've ever seen in my life…..there are two types of demons, lower demons and higher demons. Higher demons have spirits just like humans and are judged in a similar way, in the fact that they eat lower demons, much like we eat cow or chicken, so demons can go to heaven or hell just like a normal spirit. Lower demons….lower demons are just monsters that eat everything and anything that gets in their way, include human and other spirits…..A lower demon killed my grandfather….."Kagome shivered again, demon's were something only monks or miko could deal with.

Yoh's eyes widened, he head his father and mother speaking about such things when he was a child but he'd never realized how dangerous they happened to be… "Do you deal with that alone?"

"Ohh, no…never that's just stupid. If I ever had to do it again I would do it with my older brother or one of my cousins…..most of the members of my family have the same abilities." Kagome grinned happily, her ability to manipulate and use holy powers what going to become her number one asset as a shaman.

Yoh raised an eyebrow, before his eyes hardened at the sight in front of him they would have to continue their conversation later. Amidamaru was doing a very good job of protecting Manta but this spirit had a lot of anger. The two spiritualist glanced at each other, before nodding. Kagome moved with a grace that seemed similar to water when she was next to Manta, a light blue barrier shot up around them making a dome like shape to protect them from the anger malevolent energy.

"I brought white paint. You're a troublesome guy it took Kagome and I a long time to figure out what really happened. We had to ask humans and spirits alike," Yoh stated staring the spirit down, it was tall much like he had been in life. But he was completely black in color, with overly large white lips and large white pupiless eyes, it only had three fingers and toes because they seemed to have fused together.

The spirit became agitated the more Yoh spoke, it's muttering of 'Do it' become more frenzied, at the heights of its agitation it promptly slapped Yoh roughly across the face, sending his headphones flying and leaving a large bloody cut across the top of his cheek; all the while screaming "Doooo iiit!"

Manta was startled at the action, blood was running down Yoh's face at a rapid pace. "Why did he do that?"

"Normally Humans and spirits can't touch each other, by allowing the spirit to touch him. He allows the spirit to know and understand that he's a shaman." Amidamaru responded. He was worried, but he believed in his living partner Yoh could handle it.

"But," Manta began to protect. "What does that mean?"

"Spirits, wither they are good or bad, always know when someone wants to help them. If they ignore the help they become damned, transforming into malevolent spirits and if left unwatched demons. If they accept their help and acknowledge their deaths they are allowed to move on to the next part of their journey wither it be Hell, Heaven or the path or reincarnation." Kagome finished, she was extremely knowledgeable about this type of subject her family had practically beaten the subject into the ground.

Yoh continued on his diatribe as the discussion of spirits went on buffered by the large blue barrier of safety. " A year ago you were painting a billboard, you reached out to pick up the paint. You lost your balance and fell in front of an oncoming truck, it happened in a second. You're a proud guy, proud of your work and so you couldn't enter heaven, because you were so unhappy that your work wasn't finished. Over time your feelings changed and you became this, so since I'm a shaman I'll let you use my body to finish your work." Yoh stated, a look of determination on his face.

The spirit stopped a look of surprise on its mutated face, before his body began to change and morph into its original state. A very tall stocky man began to show he was wearing khaki shorts, and a gray hoody, with a black apron to keep the paint off his clothing. His hair had been black at the time of his death and he was wearing a dark blue baseball cap backwards the bill seated at the back of his head. Dark brown leather gloves covered his hands while a similar pair of dark leather boots cover his feet. "I can…I can really finish?" The tall man asked tears seemed to appear in his eyes.

Yoh nodded, a bright grin on his face "I'm like you committed to my job."

Kagome smiled, and quit relieved that things had gone as well as they had. Walking over she scooped up the poor head phones, before moving behind Yoh and putting them back on his head.

"Ah..Thanks Kagome." Yoh grinned, before he pulled the spirit into himself and got to work.

Manta sighed, he felt very guilty about the argument. Maybe he just really didn't understand everything that was going on, shaking his head he sighed he really needed to go home and work things out. "Kagome I'm headed home, Yoh I'll see you tomorrow." Manta turned and hurried home, all the while Yoh worked on the large billboard that had once again been attached to the building.

Kagome sighed as she watched Manta walk away, before climbing up the latter to sit on the top of the building that was free to watch. "Yoh do you want to sleep at my house tonight?" She finally asked, it was getting late and she'd made enough food the last few days for her family to eat without worry.

"Sure….thanks." Yoh sent a smile her way, before returning to the billboard, it would be several hours later before he was completely finished. Once the spirit left Yoh it quickly ascended to its intended place, laughing softly he managed to wake Kagome up long enough to get her off the building and onto his back. "Yoh I don't wanna wake up." Kagome muttered on his back before snuggling closer her face buried in his back. Yoh could only grin, he was going to make tease her for this, life had certainly become interesting since he'd met Kagome over a month ago. It would be twenty minutes later before, Yoh dropped Kagome on her bed before heading down the upstairs hall way to the first guest bed room to a dreamless sleep.


	4. Boxing, and Beaches

I don't own Shaman King or Inuyasha, they belong to Hiroyuki Takei and Rumiko Takahashi, respectively.

Beta: Romantic Princess

Thank you dear!

**AN: I want to let everyone know that until school lets out again, I shall be putting some of my stories on Hiatus. I'm giving everyone the ability to vote on what stories they want to have finished first. For more information or to vote please see my profile.**

**I would also like to ask that all of you review if possible, I find it hard to keep writing when I spend several hours on a chapter with no feedback I don't know what I'm doing right or wrong. I would like at least four to five reviews, I will not stop writing if I don't get the reviews, but it would make me feel better.**

Chapter 4

Kagome sighed, as she looked up toward the sky it was so very hot. She could feel the sweat pouring down her back and she could only sigh as she looked over her two friends they seemed just as uncomfortable as she did. Which wasn't really surprising… then again Manta should have been used to Tokyo heat, both she and Yoh were more accustomed to a cooler more mountainous regions of Japan?

"What are you doing Yoh?" Manta asked, as he two watched Yoh start moving around like crazy, trying to get cooler or at least that was what he thought.

"I'm fighting the heat!" Yoh exclaimed.

"Yoh… the more you move, the more you sweat, thus the hotter you get." Kagome replied, an amused expression on her face. It really couldn't be helped when one of your friends ran around like a chicken with its head cut off it was incredibly hard not to laugh.

Yoh rolled his eyes, "The heat is only unbearable because you run from it, if you face it head on!"

"You might get sunstroke." Kagome finished, her voice a tad bit dry with humor.

"Darn it Kagome!"

Both Manta and Kagome just laughed and the defeated expression on Yoh's face, this continued on until they heard shouting not far from them. There was a large boy on the ground begging to be left alone, he kept asking what he had done. The boy who'd been hitting was taller, and looked to be very strong physically, just yelled asking if he wanted more.

"Hey, Manta what's going on?" Yoh asked, as he stopped his chicken dance long enough to stare at the confrontation.

"Oh… that's Tatsushi." Manta replied, he looked a little intimidated just by being near that guy.

"So you know him?" Kagome asked, still sitting beside Manta a book of herbs sitting in her lap.

"Don't everybody? Haven't you heard of Gusshi Kenji?" Manta asked.

Kagome and Yoh shared a puzzled look, neither of them were really up to date on celebrity news or current events. They both trained until exhaustion… well Kagome trained and prodded Yoh along with her Pudao and food, but they really didn't do anything else. Yoh listened to his music and she did her gardening.

"Nope," the two of them replied in unison.

Manta rolled his eyes at the two of them, sometimes he wondered why they even came to school. "Figures, anyway Gusshi was like a boxing champion, like the God of Boxing in Japan… Gusshi found Tatsushi, and tried to you know develop him… But as you can see it didn't really work."

"Develop?" Yoh asked.

"Yeah… for a while he went from being a punk and bully to a boxer. But after Gusshi's death he went right back to his old ways." Manta sighed, before his eyes went wide when Yoh went to talk to Tatsushi. It didn't take long for the older boy to slug Yoh, like it was nothing.

Kagome sighed, before dragging Yoh to the nurses office… thankfully the nurse wasn't there it was lunch hour so no one was really about. "That was silly Yoh, and very insensitive." Scolding him lightly Kagome's hand rested on her friend's swollen cheek a soft pink and marbled blue light could be seen coming from it.

"That was pretty stupid, Yoh." Manta looked at his friends. He was still a little confounded by Kagome's abilities sometimes.

"He didn't seem like such a bad guy." Yoh responded before leaning into the warmth that Kagome was pushing into his cheek. It felt soothing and relatively wonderful after that smack in the face he'd received earlier.

"I agree, he didn't seem to be too bad of a fellow." Amidamaru responded, coming out of the memorial tablet Yoh kept in his pocket.

"Oh I agree with you, but you reminded him that someone he probably loved and cared about was dead… Gusshi didn't die to long ago right? He's probably feeling lost and alone, I felt like that after okaa-san died… and again when jiji died." Kagome replied calmly, before inspecting Yohs cheek, she didn't notice the light blush across his nose.

Both boys became silent when they looked at their female friend it made a lot of since, most people didn't just randomly change it had taken time for Tatsushi to change. "So let's get to know the guy!" Yoh grinned.

"Ha! Not gunna happen!" Manta replied, "He doesn't have any friends, or family and he's not going up to anyone!"

Yoh rolled his eyes with a huff, "So we'll look for the Champ's ghost, I mean he was the guys teacher."

"Gusshi Kenji's ghost?" Manta looked more than a little freaked out.

Yoh nodded, "Yeah, if he's still here. It's not good to run away." Grinning at the two of them Yoh spoke once more, "Alright, Amidamaru go talk to your ghostly friends. Kagome, Manta you guys can help me look around the boxing rings."

"Alright!" Kagome grinned, before giving a cheeky salute.

Manta just groaned sometimes he just wanted to let Kagome deal with it, she was surprisingly good under pressure.

It didn't take very long for the four of them to hunt down and talk to Gusshi apparently he was relatively upset with his protégés lack of commitment and was quite willing to beat the tar out of him to fix the problem. Finding Tatsushi wasn't that hard either, it had been a little frightening to have to walk through the downed bodies of Ryu and his gang. Kagome had practically stayed glued to Yoh or Manta the whole time, she and they hadn't realized how much it had frightened her of the older boys.

She and Manta stayed out of the way and they could tell from the way Tatsushi was talking to himself that he was hurting from being alone yet again.

Yoh happily teased the older boy telling him that he did indeed miss boxing all things considering, then he went even farther telling Tatsushi that he would be the next Gusshi Kenji. Of course Tatsushi didn't take to well to a guy he considered to be an out of shape punk saying things like that about his friend and mentor.

Finally infuriated, they could all hear the older boy yelling "Don't mock my teacher, you lousy imitation!"

Yoh was very in tune with the spirit that was currently sharing his body, as such every time Tatsushi tried to hit him, Yoh dodged with great skill, eventually he retaliated by giving the guy a right hook to the face.

Tatsushi grinned, "Okay, Kitty." He mocked, "I underestimated you, but not this time, you're going down."

Yoh allowed Gusshi to speak instead, "You bum, after all I told you. Still making excuses, Tatsushi?"

Yoh pulled back and socked the guy again, "You PUNK! STOP RUNNING AWAY." The shouting could be heard all over the room.

Tatsushi had tears running down his cheeks, "He always grinned like that after he gave me a lecture. Cut it out, already. You make me want to take up boxing again." When Tatsushi began to regain consciousness he remembered two thing, a kind smile of a dark haired blue eyed girl looking down at him, when he woke up he could remember her words, "But aren't you happier living this dream? And all the possibilities that can come from it? Don't give up Tatsushi-san, and make Gusshi Kenji proud." The other thing he could remember was seeing his teacher's smiling face full of pride and happiness, as if he truly was happier.

The oddest thing about everything that happened, when he regained his consciousness he had little to no bruises. As if someone had healed them all away…

Several Blocks Away…

"Kagome, why did you heal Tatsushi?" Manta asked looking up at his friend.

Kagome grinned lightly, "One, practice. Two, he really didn't deserve the beating even if Gusshi-san thought he did. And three… he's one of many young boys in this city that need a little kindness. When Gusshi-san took Tatsushi under his wing, he became happy and could make connections with the other students in his life."

"That's pretty vague, Kagome." Manta replied, slightly confused "So Yoh, what happened to getting Gusshi as a spirit?" There was a slightly laughing expression on his face.

"I ran away from him." Yoh replied, a frown on his swollen face.

"Aww, poor Yoh…. Gusshi expected you to be able to fight didn't he?" Kagome asked, before her hands were attached to her friends face and amused expression could clearly be scene.

"Yeah, yeah… you win some you lose some." Yoh replied, thanking to all the gods that he could remember that his friend could heal him when things went bad. He thanked her when those soft hands slowly removed themselves from his previously aching jaw. It still twinged, but he wasn't sure he could have eaten anything after the smack down Gusshi had given him.

"Oh, by the way. Since summer break is starting this coming Sunday I was wondering if either of you would be interested in coming with my family on vacation. Well be gone for two weeks, and it'll be a lot of fun!" Kagome grinned.

Both boys blinked surprised, "Ah… is that okay with your dad?" Manta asked, it wasn't that he didn't want to go but he was looking for a polite way to turn down the offer.

"Hai, Souta and I were told to invite two friends… thankfully Minoru and Masaru couldn't go… but Shippo was able to… he's so cute! Then again so is Souten!" Kagome had little stars in her eyes.

Yoh laughed, "I can go… it would be nice," he was practically drooling at the thought of all Kagome's good food. The idea that he would be able to chill on the beach and watch the clouds while listening to the ocean wasn't too bad either.

Manta sighed, "I can't go. I would really like to but my family usually goes abroad for summer break…"

Kagome went wide eyed, "You're going abroad!"

Manta nodded with a sigh, most of the time he enjoyed spending time with his mother and little sister. But this would also be the first summer that he'd had good friends.

"It's okay Manta. I probably should have asked earlier." Kagome had a small pink on her cheeks. "Neee, Yoh why are you drooling?"

Yoh just laughed, before rubbing at his lips he hadn't even realized he'd been drooling. Man, it was bad enough he was addicted…

"I'll see you on Sunday then… but just remember that we're going to be getting up early! So pack beforehand…" Kagome stated staring at her friend she knew just how lazy he was.

Yoh groaned, before waving her off and took the time to walk toward home it was a little depressing. It was one of the reason's he spent so much time at Kagome's who knew that so much time would pass so quickly. Huffing he frowned… where were they going again? He could call Kagome later… then again she would just get onto him about not having a cell phone. Meh… he would worry about it later.

O

O

Kagome huffed as she squirmed into her seat, they had just arrived at Yoh's house and they could all see why he stayed at their home so much. It was littered with Ghosts but the place just had an empty sad feeling to it, Kagome yawned when the van door opened and Yoh sleepily stepped inside, bypassing the three six year olds to settle into the seat beside Kagome.

"Morning Yoooooh," Kagome yawned again.

The large van bounced and moved while Yoh just blinked, it was way too early in the morning for this.

"Sleep." Yoh replied, his eyes were already starting to slip closed.

Haru laughed softly, when he climbed back into the car looking in his rearview mirror a slow grin of amusement was on his face. "I have to say okaa-san this is going to be a relatively quiet trip."

Kaede snorted with laughter, "That's because you forced those children up at this ungodly hour. Really Haru, it's 4 in the morning. Isn't this just a bit early?" Kaede was forced to push down a loud yawn.

"Nah, besides the Tango Peninsula is nearly a nine hour drive… leaving this early will ensure we get to check in on time and let the kids explore. You and I can take a nap while Yoh and Kagome chaperone." Haru chuckled softly.

Kaede shook her head, "That's really cruel of you Haru. This vacation was supposed to be for everyone, especially Kagome." There was a slight frown on her face, a worried one two… Kagome hadn't stopped her Miko training, nor her Shaman training with Yoh. Kaede was worried that her granddaughter was going to spread herself too far, but she was far happier now than she had months ago.

"Ah, I don't think we'll have to worry to badly about it. Miroku and Sango will be there at about five, they agreed to watch over Souta and his friends for a few days, and we're going to be able to see the baby." Haru grinned, Miroku was his oldest son from a previous marriage. Both his wives had passed before him.

"Kohaku will be there?" Kaede asked surprised.

Haru nodded, "Hai, Kagome will be happy about it. Go to sleep okaa-san…" Haru watched his mother dose off, before looking back again. Souta and his friends were in the middle seat of the van, considering that there were three of them. Souten, was probably Souta's only female friend she was also the one in the middle seat both Souta and Shippo were snuggled up on either side of the girl. Kaede had placed a blanket over the three of them when they'd stopped to pick up Yoh.

The seat farthest back was a two-seater, Yoh and Kagome were sleeping as well. He knew his daughter very well and if Yoh was anything like her they would both be passed out until they were just about there. He felt his heart clench at his only daughter, there was so much weighing down on her shoulders. That and he was once again reminded that she was growing up so fast, Yoh was leaning on his girl an arm wrapped around her waist and she was snuggled up against his side, head on his shoulder.

Shaking the thoughts from his mind he focused on the drive ahead, they would be awake for the ride back and he knew that Kagome would enjoy it. Yoh too since he seemed to like napping in the sun… though Haru and his mother had eventually gotten used to seeing the boy passed out under the Goshinboku's limbs.

Several Hours later…

"Otou-san?"

"Hai, Souta?" Haru looked back.

"How much longer do we have?" Souta asked, he and Shippo had been awake for the last three or four hours and they'd been watching movie after movie; so the only reason he would ask was if they movie was over.

"Hmmm, not too far actually. About fifteen minutes left, you can wake everyone up if you want." Haru chuckled when both Souta and Shippo cheered, Souten had yelped she had been playing a video game on her DS and they had yelled loudly enough to be heard over her ear buds.

"Souta, Shippo don't shout please." Kaede replied, looking into the review to glare at them.

"Wassa?" A sleepy response could be heard behind the six year olds and it was definitely male.

"Hey, Yoh… you and onee-chan sleep like the dead." Souta grinned, looking back over the seat.

Yoh just blinked before nodding and rubbing at his face with his free hand, "Soo, where are we?"

"Near the Tango Peninsula." Haru grinned, "We have a large house rented, within walking distance to the beach."

"Ah," Yoh was finally awake, at least he thought he was. Looking for Kagome he was surprised to find his female friend snuggled up against his shoulder, her thick raven black hair was brushing his chin and he really didn't mind. She was warm and soft, then again he'd never seen Kagome just sleep she seemed a lot younger than normal asleep.

"Well, are you going to wake her up?" Shippo asked.

Yoh just sighed, before shaking her lightly with both arms, he was surprised when Kagome grumbled about getting up and wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled down sleepily.

Souta and his friend giggled watching, "She sleeps a lot on Sunday's the only reason she gets up before one is because she knows you come over a lot." Souta finished, and laughed happily when Yoh sent him a surprised look and blushed when Kagome's face began to nuzzle his neck.

"Kagome! Come on wake up." Shaking his friend a little rougher, he felt a hot breath on his cheek and sleepy eyes blinking at him.

"Yoh?" Kagome was soo sleepy… she'd stayed up a lot in the last few weeks, before shifting back into her seat slipping out of Yoh's lap.

"Yeah." Yoh stared, she still wasn't awake just sorta awake and staring at his face.

"Where are we?" Kagome asked, her mind still hadn't booted back up.

"Actually we're here. It's time to unpack." Haru grinned, "There several bed rooms. Shippo, Souta, Yoh the three of you will be staying in the same room, Souten, Kagome, you have another, and while okaa-san and I will be sharing the fourth room is for Miroku and his family."

Kagome was suddenly awake, "Roku is coming?"

"Hai, now you all get out let's get things in the house." Haru replied as he began to hand things to the children. He'd given his mother the key and she was opening it, thankfully because there were so many people it didn't take too long to get everything unpacked and put away.

"Alright, what does everyone want to do?" Haru asked, it was roughly three after everything was said and done. They had ordered pizza and eaten before anything was said and done. He and his mother had gotten something at the drive-thru while the children had continued to sleep.

"Beach!" Shippo replied, a big grin on his face.

"Hmmm, Kaede and I need to go to the Nariai-ji Temple. I would like to speak with the head priest there, his grand-daughter wishes to learn more advanced barriers. Kaede is one of the best, if the terms are agreeable we will earn good revenue from this."

"This is how you paid for the vacation nee?" Kagome asked, an amused expression on her face.

Haru just rolled his eyes, "No, you have to pay before you get to rent this house, now will you and Yoh keep an eye until we get back? Miroku and Sango should be here in an hour or so."

Yoh just shrugged his shoulders in a universal whatever okay way, while Kagome nodded. "Okay, otou-chan… but I want ice cream this evening." She was eyeing her farther with a sharp gleam.

"Hai hai," Haru and Kaede waved before getting their things together and leaving.

"Okay, if you guys want to go, ya gotta get your swimsuits on." Kagome grinned, before she found herself in the room she had with Souten helping the younger girl get on her swim suit. "Go wait with the boys I'll be there in a minute kay?"

Souten nodded, "Okay, thanks for helping me with this swimsuit… I swear my mom just buys the oddest ones."

Kagome snickered softly, the suit crossed in an awkward way in the back and front. Laughing softly she rolled her eyes when Souta yelled that they were going out without her and she could hear Yoh's protests.

Going down stairs she sighed, Souta had left everything and she meant everything at the back door. Picking up the umbrella and the bag of towels she set off, Kagome yelped when she hit the sand it was hot and white and seemed to sear the soles of her feet. Taking several steps back she grinned when she found Yoh's flip flops before putting them on, it was just too hot to walk on the sand.

Yoh sighed as he watched the three six year olds all the while sitting farther up on some of the still compacted sand. It wasn't as hot as the soft and fluffy sand, but it also kept him from being soaked by the three of them splashing each other.

Blinking Yoh looked back he could hear the movement of sand but he could also here the huff of frustration, he didn't expect to see an woman's lower body he could see everything from her plump round cheeks to the very thing that exclaimed she was female everything was covered in a white string bikini bottom. He could see long thick black hair fluttering in the wind, and the bottom wiggling every few movements as the woman ensured that the large beach umbrella was properly in the ground.

Turning back toward the kids, he groaned at his not so little problem… what if Kagome caught him like that? He was a teenage boy, she would understand right? Then again one time when they were watching movies she seemed ready to kill a pervert…

"Yoh… Yoh!"

Yoh nearly jumped out of his skin when a warm calloused hand landed on his shoulder, "Hai?" He knew his voice was tight and he was more than a little embarrassed.

"Are you okay?" Kagome asked looking toward her friends face.

Yoh nodded, "Yeah…"

"Come on," Kagome grinned, snagging Yoh wrist dragging him toward the ocean.

Yoh blinked on the hand at his wrist before his eyes drifted toward his friends back, his heart dropped four white strings tied around her neck and upper back. He was so dead if she ever figured out how closely he'd studied her lower half.

"Yoh are you sure you're okay?" Kagome asked a worried frown on her face, as she looked back she'd stopped tugging on his and he could tell she was concerned.

"Yeah, yeah." Yoh waved of the concern away.

Rolling her eyes, she grinned when the water hit her knees before rushing the rest of the way in both her brother and his friends cheered they could go deeper into the water, as long as Kagome and Yoh were around at least. Yoh laughed, as he watched them play it was pretty obvious that Kagome adored her brother and the feeling was completely returned.

"Phhh, oh no don't let him get away!" Kagome laughed, when both Shippo and Souta attacked Yoh the three of them promptly fell into the ocean and they came up sputtering.

Souten began to giggle in amusement, "Go Yoh!"

"Hey! Who are you rooting for?" Shippo pouted, just before he was once again shoved under water by a strong push from Yoh.

Souta laughed, before jumping on to the older boy's back sending him into Kagome and all three of them ended up the bright green water.

Kagome came up laughing, she was attached to Yoh's back and Souta was squished between the two of them. She was as slippery as a fish and really fast in the water it was about the only reason that she'd managed to get on her friends back.

"Ah, Kagome watch the feet." Yoh replied pulling the thin foot high on his stomach.

"Hai hai," Kagome replied, it didn't take long for them to once again plop back into the water, then again she wasn't surprised. She doubted she could hold up a teenage girl and three six year olds either.

"Kagome, Souta!" A tenor male voice shouted across the beach, both siblings paused before looking up as did the siblings friends. A tall man was standing in front of the rented house, he had dark hair the same raven black as the Higurashi family.

Yoh could only watch in surprise at Kagome's expression she looked as if something precious had been dropped in front of her. She took off out of the ocean, and across the sand before anyone could ask who it was. While he wouldn't admit it, looking at the happiness on her face made his heart clench with something he hadn't felt before. Yoh had to wonder who this person was and why she was so happy.

Souta grinned, "Come on," Pulling on Yoh's hand the boy began to babble, "That's our onii-chan."

"Onii-chan?" Yoh blinked in surprise, while Shippo and Souten both followed behind the two of them. They were to an extent hiding behind Yoh's legs a little bit shy around this new older person.

"Hai, Miroki-nii is from father's previous marriage. We're only half siblings… and he's a lot older than me and even Kagome. He's twenty six." Souta replied, his finger lacing with Yoh's happy that his two favorite people were around. He liked Yoh almost as much as his Miroku-nii, though he still wasn't too sure about Manta he was really loud.

As they came closer to the house it was easy to see that Kagome even in her bikini was practically wrapped around her brother, she was tiny in comparison to the older man who stood a good foot and some inches taller than her.

"Mai, mai Kagome-chan… I disapprove this swimsuit… I'll have to fight off the perverts to defend your honor." Miroku grinned, his little sister was all but sitting on his forearm because of her lack of height and he couldn't help but bring her close and bury his face in her hair.

"Pft… Yoh would help me out if someone tried to take advantage of me." Kagome scoffed, before happily sighing as she took in her brother's scent. He always smelled like coffee and chocolate, some special cologne that Sango loved.

"Oh? Who is Yoh?" Miroku asked curious.

Kagome grinned before wiggling down, and looking back she knew that Souta would drag Yoh and the others to meet their older brother.

"Onii-chan this is Yoh Asakura, Souten Raimatsu, and Shippo Kurama."Kagome grinned pointing out to each of them, "Guys this is Souta and my older brother, Miroku Higurashi."

All three of them bowed, before looking up to see Miroku grinning down on them. Souta just laughed at his brother before tackling him, only to be lifted into the air and being thrown up and being caught.

"Alright, everyone inside… Kagome, Yoh will you get what needs to be brought back from the beach? After that you two can go explore." Miroku replied, absently rubbing Souta's back.

Kagome nodded, before grabbing Yoh's hand and pulling him along… neither of them noticed that they never let go.

Miroku on the other hand sighed as he looked at the two of them, Kagome and Yoh to an extent were in for a world of heart ache. He knew Kino and Yohmei Asakura, he also knew that Kino was bound and determined to have the girl she trained become part of the family. But it was obvious to him that the boy would never love that particular girl.

"Sango… come meet Souta's friends." Miroku turned away from the young teenagers to walk into the house trying not to let his heart become too heavy for the things that he knew were coming.

O

O

After things had been gathered and taken back to the house, both Kagome and Yoh found themselves just walking around curious about what was going on around the area. What they found was that the locals were absolutely terrified of them after they found what house the two of them were staying in.

"What do you think Yoh? It was odd… I tried to ask questions and the only one who would answer were the children… they said there was always a white figure around the house at night. Every night…" Kagome asked looking up at the sky.

"Hmmm, maybe it's a ghost… sometimes if they have enough energy they can manifest during particular times." Yoh commented absent mindedly.

Kagome sighed nodding, "I suppose." She couldn't help it… something was bothering her about the story.

"Don't worry about it…" Yoh replied, looking forward as they walked toward the house.

Kagome nodded in agreement, it was getting dark so this supposedly the figure would be out there "Come look with me."

"What?"

"Look with me, please?" Kagome asked, a large begging expression on her face.

"Look at what Kagome?" Miroku asked, standing in the doorway staring at the two of them.

"Supposedly there's a spirit that stands at the front of our beach house... I think I need to be there." Kagome grumbled, loudly enough for her brother to understand her.

Miroku sighed, "You're just like Hua…"

Kagome frowned, a very rebellious and slightly angry expression came across her face. "Low blow, onii-sama." Huffing in hurt, Kagome turned and stomped away in a hurry. Her shoes were kicked off, before she took off running down the beach.

Yoh could only watch in surprise, when a low voice sighed deeply before asking him something "Will you go after her to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble?"

Yoh looked at the older boy an unreadable expression on his face, before nodding and following his friend at a much slower calmer pace.

Sango sighed, "You knew that would hurt her more than anything in the world Miroku, why would you say something like that?"

Miroku turned to look closely at his wife, she was beautiful, but she was blind it was one of things that had kept them apart for a long time before she finally trusted him. "Kagome needs to face reality, following your gut isn't always going to be what needs to be done."

"And you need to face it to, your little sister watched things that no child should. You had no right to interfere… I'm disappointed in you Miroku. If Kagome doesn't find this protection then it will be on your head when she dies."

Miroku stared at his wife, she had something that came at a high cost almost too high to pay and he was sometimes disconcerted when she spoke out against his actions. "I would do it again if it pushed them closer together."

"And what of my punishment?" Sango asked, coldly.

"I would accept it as mine."

"You're such a foolish man. Sometimes I wonder why I married you." Sango replied, her long thick hair was pulled back from her face as she glared in annoyance. Not only was he a pervert but a meddler to.

"Don't worry Sango… everything will be fine." Miroku replied, pulling his wife forward for a kiss. He yelped when he received an elbow to the gut instead of his kiss, "Go change Kohaku… I'll tell Haru and Kaede about Yoh and Kagome's adventure tonight Mr. Responsible."

Miroku groaned, his dad was going to kill him if his grandmother didn't do it first. He knew what the spirit was and more importantly he knew WHO the spirit was his own guardian had informed him that earlier in the day.

A soft chuckling reached his ears before he turned to look at a younger woman, she looked to be about 16 or 17 to young to be wearing the garments of battle. But she was also several times older than he himself was, "What is it Midoriko-sama?"

"That girl holds my power… but she also holds a pure heart and you sent her after a demon spirit. You must have great faith in your dear little sister, Miroku-chan." The woman replied, her long hair falling around her ankles as she floated before him.

Miroku stared at the spirit, she was the strongest priestess the strongest woman spirit born to the Asian nations according to a number of articles he'd read. But she was also the most troublesome, "She's stronger than you." It was all he would say, leaving his spirit with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"We will see." Midoriko chuckled softly before beginning to follow the young Higurashi girl. She was curious about the girl she'd been born inside, and how she'd been able to purify the demon Magatsuhi when she the greatest Miko of her time had been unable.


	5. Her Horrible Secret

I don't own Shaman King or Inuyasha they belong to Hiroyuki Takei, and Rumiko Takahashi.

Beta: Romantic Princess

Thank you!

**AN: I want to let everyone know that until school lets out again, I shall be putting some of my stories on Hiatus. I'm giving everyone the ability to vote on what stories they want to have finished first. For more information or to vote please see my profile.**

**I would also like to ask that all of you review if possible, I find it hard to keep writing when I spend several hours on a chapter with no feedback I don't know what I'm doing right or wrong. I would like at least four to five reviews, I will not stop writing if I don't get the reviews, but it would make me feel better.**

Chapter 5

Kagome huffed the sun was setting and she was just a little lost she knew if she just turned around that she would eventually make it back to the house but she wasn't sure that she wanted to go back. She was still to a certain extent angry with her brother, she had told her friends lies… both Manta and Yoh. But she was scared if she told them they truth they would look at her differently and she could lose the only people that accepted her as just Kagome.

Blinking in surprise she realized just how far she'd run, there was a sea cave ahead of her and with the tide low it was a actually rather pretty with its dark coral looks. Kagome glanced back and forward before decided that maybe she would explore it later. It wouldn't be smart to go inside at the moment, there was no telling how far back the cave went and she didn't want to get lost or hurt.

Jumping down from one of the rocks Kagome simply sat there looking over the water the sun was a dark orange color and it was bleeding red and purple as the clouds soared in front of it. Maybe she should talk with her grandmother about it… weren't you suppose to be able to trust your friends with everything?

"Kaaagooommeeee."

Kagome yelped, extremely started from her thoughts before she felt forward twisting her ankle badly and scraping her knees, thighs, and hands against the rocks. Ohhh it hurt so badly, a small whimper escaped her throat gooosh she hadn't hurt herself like this before.

"Ah, crap… Kagome, did I scare you that badly?" Warm calloused hands, immediately had her by the waist helping her from the rocky sandy ground.

Kagome wrapped her arms around his neck, "Owwww!"

"Sorry, hold on a minute." Yoh replied, before pulling his friend into his lap and settling into a rock. She really was tiny… even if she was only a few inches shorter them him she was a heck of a lot lighter. "Hey stop moving." He muttered checking on her ankle, before taking off his shirt to wrap it tightly... he knew it was going to hurt but they needed to keep it compressed.

"Hurts." Kagome knew she was whining, but at this point it didn't matter.

Yoh sighed, "It's pretty badly sprained, I don't think that you're going to be able to walk on this." When Kagome just whimpered, and buried her face against his neck when Yoh began to move Kagome started again, he quickly caught the back of her calf, she'd almost banged that ankle on the rock again.

"Be still," Yoh told her quietly before settling her back on the rock moving, before pulled her tight against his back. It almost seemed as if he was always giving her a piggy back ride, he could feel silent hot tears against his shoulder and knew she was hurting a lot more than normal.

He had been walking along time before they were back in sight of the house, "Do we have to go back in?" Kagome asked softly, her voice was muffled from where it was still buried in his shoulder.

"Yeah… unless you want to tell me what this is all about… you don't run away a lot Kagome." Yoh stated, staring straight ahead. It hurt to know that she didn't trust him with everything, then again there was a lot about him that she didn't know. "And you don't have to… you can trust me you know."

"I know…" Kagome muttered in a soft quiet voice, "But let's sit out here okay?"

Yoh blinked in surprise, "I'll be back in a moment." He spoke putting Kagome on the sand, he was gentle with her making sure that her ankle and leg didn't hit anything.

Kagome could only watch, she really should have trusted Yoh with more than she had. He wouldn't blame her… at least anymore than she blamed herself.

Yoh sighed, Haru had literally freaked out when he came inside without Kagome. He'd been forced to wait until the older man had calmed down to be able to speak, when he finally told him what had happened and they were going to speak outside about a private matter the whole household had gone quiet.

Grabbing the huge beach blanket, Yoh ignored the arguing (it seemed to be divided into several sides, Miroku, Sango and Kagome's father and grandmother all had something different to say) and with a small medic kit in hand continued back toward the beach he could easily see his friends as he grew closer and he could tell that what was going to be told was something that very few knew.

Laying out the large picnic sized blanket Yoh chuckled, when Kagome blinked in surprise before turning over and crawling she ignored Yoh's amused snickering. Finally on the blanket she huffed before laying down and staring up at the sky, Yoh looked down on her face an amused grin on his face, "This is going to be cold."

Kagome groaned, extremely displeased when a very cold ice pack covered the top of her ankle, Yoh had put her foot on stop of the soft medical kit, it was elevated and cold. "So are you going to tell me about it?"

Kagome sighed, "I'm a bad person, Yoh." Her face was covered by her forearms and he could tell from her shaking body that she was crying again.

Yoh snorted, "If you're a bad person I'm a tooth fairy."

"I'm trying to be serious, it's my fault mom died." Kagome stated, her voice was shaky and muffled, like she had a hard time getting it out.

Yoh studied her, before stretching out beside his friend laying on his side he scooted over until he could wrap his arms around her so that her foot wouldn't have to be moved again. "Start from the beginning…this is why Miroku said you were like your mom right?"

"Yeah… remember… remember when I said I was younger and I hadn't been trained?" Kagome asked, she had squirmed until her head was resting on his shoulder.

"You told that to us a while ago." Yoh responded… it really had been a long time ago back when he had first met Kagome, Manta and Amidamaru. "Kagome that was like four months ago," when he just go a nodded response and a deep breath he went quiet.

"It really… really wasn't that long ago. About four years you know? I was like eight, and I didn't want to train. So I didn't train as hard as I could… I think… I don't remember a lot before that night. I think I trained with Mama to be shaman before they decided being a miko was safer, but it's not really clear or anything."

"Do you think that's why it's so easy for you to call on Go-chan?" Yoh asked, not really wanting to think Go-chan at the moment. Often times the blessed tree spirit wormed her way into Amidamaru's memorial tablet and he certainly didn't want to know that the two of them did in there either.

"I think so… I mean it didn't make any since to you to right?" Kagome muttered.

Yoh sighed, "I thought you were just really good… It seemed natural to you, almost as natural as seeing you in those chihaya you wear at home." He could only shrug a little it wasn't that out of the ordinary to him.

Kagome paused before staring up at him, "Do you have something against the chihaya?"

"Iie… you look cute in them, now stop trying to change the subject. So you really can't remember anything before age eight?" Yoh responded dryly.

Kagome huffed, a soft blush on her cheeks "Yeah… I don't remember Souta being born… there's so much stuff that I don't remember and it scares me sometimes."

Yoh blinked, "Is it all of it or just certain events?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I'll have dreams and stuff, but they seem so real and make more sense." Kagome shivered, she was cold not physically but mentally and emotional something cool and dangerous seemed to rise up inside her and she didn't understand. "But anyway… back to the thing with Mama… she always warned me about being called away… spirited away."

Yoh simply listened as he was pulled back into a memory that sounded a lot more painful than she should have had to remember, he wondered if this bad memory had just eclipsed all the bad ones.

_It was a warm summer night at least as far as mountain summers went, the wind was blowing lightly and it was easy to see from all around. The shrine covered the hilly area and meadows could be seen all around while a waterfall was up farther north. _

_Her mother had warned her repeatedly, that some things and some summons weren't meant to be acknowledged. These were dangerous as they felt kind and gentle much like the flower sprites and some of the older tree spirits they felt pretty much the same. It would take more experience her mother said… to be able to discern the difference._

_But she was a lot like her mother, excited and happy to play in the fields she felt something warm and it reminded her of the tree of when she was a child that was in the other shrine that her aunt's family was taking care off. So she followed the feeling, she could hear her mother calling but this felt warm sweet almost._

_And that's when something shifted, something dark and cold seemed to ignite inside her and she turned hurrying to get away but it was something evil. And it wanted to do things to her that it couldn't do without a human body. This spirit wasn't natural, it was human but it was corrupted almost like the story of souls her mama and brother sometimes told her about._

_Fighting against it she cried as something cold began to creep into her chest and up around her arms and legs, and it coming in closer and closer. Focusing on her powers like her mother and grandmother had once told her to she nearly screamed when something brushed against her body in places that no one was suppose to touch, then it began to feel her mouth forcing its way into her body. _

_The tears were coming more fiercely now and she could only relieve muffled screams as her power began to go haywire, it was burning everything the things that wasn't nature, even her skin was burning the smell of charring flesh began to reach her nose and that simply sent her into a worse panic. Those who were sensitive to such energy and power could feel it for miles, and several would claim that the area was purified of everything especially humans._

_She slowly began to lose consciousness, and when she awoke she was alone in the meadow and all she could see was the charred remains of a body. Her own hurt… oh god it hurt, had she really burned herself? But whose body was that? Had she killed someone? Oh… oh… oh… Mama's tattoo she could see it on that body… she'd hurt mama… what was she going to do… Daddy would hate her it was all her fault… Mama was dead and it was all her fault._

"It was all my fault." Kagome was crying, if she'd just listened to her mother she would have never of burned her mother to death with her power.

Yoh went still, damn… what could he say to that? How did you get over that, and how long had Kagome thought she'd killed her mother? Did Hua or Haru know that Kagome thought that way? "Kagome. You didn't burn your mother, I know you didn't." He pulled her closer, letting her bury her face into his neck.

"But it was my fault, Yoh… Mama was like me she always followed her instincts… and it was all my fault. That's why onii-san said that." Kagome replied, still sniffling.

Yoh silently cursed Miroku to hell and back and wondered how mad her other family members would be if he slugged the bastard. "What do you really remember, besides waking up next to Hua's body?"

"No… I remember everything being black and then seeing Mama." Kagome replied, glancing up wondering why he was asking that.

"So how long were you out of it?" Yoh replied.

Kagome frowned, "I don't know."

"Did you ever ask someone about it?"

"Iie."

Yoh sighed, "Did you ever talk to anyone about it?"

"Iie" Kagome replied, she felt small and stupid.

"You're a little idiot." Yoh replied, when she started to reply he did something that would change their relationship for a long time to come. Leaning over his friend and pressing her into the soft sand he kissed her, softly, slowly until her protests slipped from her mind and she simply melted against him her arms had wrapped around his shoulder and neck as the kiss continued. Pulling away he could only note her dazed expression and the bright blush that had settled across her nose, "Kagome you could have been unconscious for hours… and I doubt you burned your mother unless the thing that tried to possess you wrapped her in its essence. You have to talk with your mother when you get home or Haru-san or Kaede. You were eight, you were a child, and this isn't and never will be your fault. Do you understand me? You're going to stop saying it's your fault, because it's not."

Kagome looked like she was going to protest before deciding against it, "Okay." When she finally answered it was quiet and soft, she looked weak and a little broken and he didn't know how to fix it. But how could you fix something that had been held onto for so long? How did she push through those thoughts and feelings all the time? It made him wonder if that was what made her work and keep busy all the time.

Yoh continued to listen and could only sigh when her breathing evened out, she was beginning to fall asleep and he wanted nothing more than to bundle her away to keep her safe. As he began to move away he watched in surprise when Kagome opened her eyes, "Don't go Yoh… stay with me. Please?"

Yoh sighed, she looked tired… drained beyond using too much of her mana both of them had done so before… "Okay. But I need to take the ice off you're ankle… and we need to go inside." He had no idea how long they'd stayed outside, but the house was quiet and the lights were out. Working on silence, he snickered when she twitched then grumbled about the cold when he removed the ice pack the swelling had gone down a little.

"Hey, Kagome stay awake, long enough to hold this." Yoh handed her the medical kit and wrapped her up in the beach blanket. Before he lifted her in something similar to a bridal style and carried her inside. Neither of them noticed the demonic energy that was watching them with a deep never ending want…. "Kagome…" The spirit whispered before disappearing, the two of them had no idea they had been followed and observed by the white spirit that haunted the beaches of this stretch of the Tango Peninsula.

O

O

Haru sighed, when he went down stairs with Miroku the two of them had gotten into a long argument about how to handle Kagome before. It seemed that the two of them always clashed, at least with Kagome in the picture… hearing a strangled sound coming from Miroku's lips he could only raise his eyebrow before making his way the rest of the way down the stairs and looking into the living area.

IT was then that he realized why his son had nearly had a small heart attack, he knew that she was growing up and this just seemed to reiterate the point. The blanket was wrapped around the two of them and Yoh was laying across some of the sitting pillows while Kagome was snuggled up to his side, she had always had a thing about being warm even as a child.

Haru chuckled softly, "Well make breakfast, you owe her."

"I didn't expect him to be cuddling my baby sister! I said get closer, not sleep together!" Miroku scowled at the two of them.

"This is your own meddling so tough cookies. Go cook!" Haru replied, sitting on one of the free sitting pillows.

Over the next several hours the children would come down stairs, they would eat, then the whole family left and Yoh and Kagome simply slept through it all both their Guardians were more than a little worried.

Eventually both Kagome and Yoh were forced awake by her sister in law Sango, "It's time to get up you two." She just chuckled when neither of them responded. She eventually resorted to getting two wet rags and dropping them both on the two sleeping teen's faces.

Both of them woke up sputtering in surprise, "Oneee-san!" Kagome whined pulling the wet rag from her face before beginning to rub her wet face off on Yoh's shirt. Yoh on the other hand did his sputtering before wiping away the offending coldness, and rolled over onto his stomach to bury his face into a pillow leaving Kagome to lie on his back.

"You two need to wake up… the kids were getting worried," Sango smiled at the two they were still in the clothing from the day before. "Go get a shower and change clothes." Kagome grumbled before doing as asked, she promptly disappeared upstairs, Yoh on the other hand was happily lying on the floor his face buried in a pillow. "I'll go upstairs after the shower goes off."

Sango snickered, before settling in the comfortable kitchen chairs "What time did the two of you come in last night?"

"Pretty late… she was pretty upset and Miroku is an ass." Yoh replied.

Sango blinked in surprise, and she had to wonder what Kagome had told the teenage boy. "Haahaa, sometimes we all are."

Yoh simply snorted and ignored the response, when the water switched off Yoh hurried up the stairs something about Sango rubbed him wrong way. He had no idea that the woman down stairs was laughing softly because she knew that she'd startled him.

After they were both clean everyone had come back in and they ended up going up on a family outing to an aquarium. And several other touristsites before they managed to make it back to the house, after dinner the Higurashi's and the children stayed inside to watch a movie while Kagome and Yoh left.

They had been sitting there for a while just looking over the ocean, when they were both startled by a large white spirit. Yoh reacted first by stepping back before pulling Kagome behind him, she was able to put pressure on her injured foot but there was no way in hell she would be able to run if it came down to it.

The two of them could only look up at the spirit, it was tall taller than even Amidamaru. Its silver white hair was long running down its back and down to its knees while golden amber eyes seemed to focus on them with a deep intelligent intensity. It was wearing an old style of clothing which was white in color and sashed by a bright yellow with blue at its tails. A large boa like thing that looked like fur was resting across his shoulder If one were to look closer they would see that the demon's clothing was ripped and torn, while blood seemed to have dried just about where it's heart would have been and seemed to spill over and down across the front of its clothing going so far to have large blotches of blood on its pants.

Kagome squinted, before her eyes went wide, "Demon."

Yoh sighed, why did these things happen to him?

"Hai." The spirit responded to the quiet statement, he was a demon and had no problems admitting it. "You are a Higurashi… but not the one I seek." The demon rolled in a deep monotone, its sharp golden amber eyes seemed to be studying the two of them as if he knew something more than them.

Kagome felt a shiver run down her spine, before pressing more tightly against Yoh's back. "Who… who are you looking for?"

"Higurashi Kagome."

"That would be my name." Kagome replied, Yoh on the other hand was frowning what would a demon spirit on the other side of Japan know about a school girl in Tokyo.

"Ah… but you are not my Kagome… she did not have blue eyes." The demon stated bending to look closely at her, "But you are almost identical to her."

Kagome bit her lip, "There have been several women in the Higurashi family named Kagome. It's a family name."

The demon nodded, before studying them "I wish to return with you, where ever it is you come from. I wish to know the fate of my Kagome."

"Your Kagome?" Yoh asked, a curious expression on his face.

"Ah. I promised to wait, but she never came."

"You think she's dead?" Kagome replied.

The demon spirit nodded, "Hai. My tsubame would have returned to me by now."

"Ahmmm… I don't mind, if you come along I mean… do I need to get a Memorial stone?" Kagome finally asked.

"That would be preferred." The demon responded, before glancing to the left.

"Ohh hooo! So the old dog fell in love with the one of Kami-sama's daughters…. you never did do anything that was considered normal did you?" Go-chan was laughing happily, standing beside the children looking over the long silver headed man.

"Goshinboku." The demon nodded, before bowing.

Go-chan scowled, "Don't do that…. darn earth spirits always bowing…" She continued to grumble, all of the spirits human and otherwise staring at her as if she lost her mind, "This is why I like human spirits that don't treat me any different…" The tree spirit huffed before disappearing back into a stone memorial, both Yoh and Kagome ignored the fact that she'd slipped back into Amidamaru's instead of her own.

Yoh snickered softly, "Nee, Demon-san do you have a name?"

"Ah… I am known as Sesshoumaru." He replied coolly, eyeing Yoh with something akin to bemusement.

"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome blanched at the meaning of the name.

"Demon's are not known for being kind or lucky, Kagome-san." Sesshoumaru replied easily, before looking at the two briefly and "I will see you both at a later time." With that spoken the demon disappeared into the night, they wouldn't see him again until the day before they returned home.

Sesshoumaru had disappeared into the stone after they had gotten one, and he had not spoken with them in the week that they had left at the beach. Several times Yoh and Kagome simply sat on the beach in the sun looking over the sea while the sun set, the demon spirit waited with them never speaking but it both gave the two of them a sense of calm. Sesshoumaru always warned them when someone was coming or of the changes in the ocean current, needless to say it had helped them keep Souta and his friends out of trouble.

O

O

It had been nearly a week since Yoh and Kagome had gone to Tango Peninsula, and neither of them had spoken about the kiss upon the beach. And neither of them where thinking about it, in fact they were completely ignoring the fact that it had ever happened in the first place. After everything had occurred, they had both been drained emotionally and were slightly relieved to be back in Tokyo.

Or at least Kagome was she was grateful that she was home, she had really enjoyed spending an entire week with Yoh and had gotten to know him so much better as a person and she had to wonder just how much of himself to the world. Yet, at the same time it had been a relief to have someone who hadn't judged her for everything that had gone wrong in her life.

"I'll have three shaved ices please?" Yoh grinned at the woman. It really was just too hot and humid in Tokyo, Kyoto was a nice place to visit and at least the beaches there didn't look like they would try to eat you.

"You're going to eat three shaved ices?" Manta looked surprised, he knew that Yoh lived to eat but not this much.

"Nah, one's for Kagome." Yoh grinned, when he watched the blush run across her face. That was one thing that had changed about them returning, he took a great and slightly perverted pleasure in making her blush as often as possible.

"Ahh, thank you Yoh… you didn't have to." Kagome smiled softly, before sitting down at one of the booths.

"So what's the third one for?" Manta asked, taking a seat opposite the two before him.

"Watch!" Yoh grinned, putting the extra shaved ice on the table before placing Amidamaru's memorial tablet beside the food and placed a spoon in the top of it. Amidamaru happily came out with thanks after prayers were said, Go-chan came out seconds later a sleepy look on her face and her clothing and hair were ruffled up looking like she'd slept in a bed.

"Amidamaru, Go-chan! I wasn't expecting that it nearly gave me a heart attack!" Manta sighed, before looking at Yoh and Kagome who were both eyeing Go-chan with suspicion.

"Go-chan?" Kagome asked, softly after she'd taken a small bite of her yummy melon flavored ice.

"Hmmm?" Go-chan replied, absent mindedly trying to smooth out her hair.

"Why do you stay in Amidamaru's memorial tablet all the time?" Kagome asked, a curious slightly embarrassed expression on her face.

Go-chan blinked, her green eyes focusing on Kagome an amused expression on her face, "Weellll…. you know I like to nap and sleep, but his memorial tablet is different than mine."

Yoh blinked in surprise, "Really? In what way?"

"Because I'm a tree spirit the stone responds to that by creating a landscape and such, Amidamaru is human and adjusts to human needs so while there is a nice landscape he has a human house too!" Go-chan replied, a happy smile on her face.

Manta was intrigued. "What about for Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"I require both." All three humans practically jumped out of their skin at the deep smooth voice responded from beside them.

"Yeas… Sesshoumaru requires both… but if I stayed in his memorial stone I would drive his sense of smell batty… so I mooch off Amidamaru… the rooms are nice and big and they have those things that you sleep on Kagome!" Go-chan grinned eagerly.

"A bed?"

"YESH! I love sleeping on them… so much nicer than my branches." Go-chan pouted, at the disbelief on the human's faces.

Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes at the excitable tree spirit before turning to Kagome, "What have you learned of my Kagome?"

Kagome blinked, "Oh…. well you were from the Nanboku-Cho period… from what I've been able to discover and there were only one Higurashi Kagome from that time period… but from the picture that I've discovered I don't look anything like her."

Sesshoumaru frowned, "My Kagome was not a normal ningen, her clothing was different from the time… as was her speech and holding." This seemed to surprise Kagome frowned, "Ano… you haven't talked to my oba-san Kaede have you?"

The demon simply shook his head in a negative way, "Well when we get home we'll talk to her alright? She might now more about what's going on than I do!"

"My thanks." Sesshoumaru replied, before disappearing into his tablet.

"You know he's sorta scary," Manta muttered glancing at Kagome.

"You thought Amidamaru was scary to… Sesshoumaru-sama is a high ranking demon, I would imagine he might have been a Daiyoukai thought he looked fairly young. As such he'd more human like than one would think!" An angry look seemed to flutter across her face in annoyance.

"Ohh my! You kids need to get out! The Chinese restaurant upstairs caught on fire." The manager of the tiny shop began shouting, ushering everyone outside.

As they looked up they could all see the raging inferno and it was more than a little terrifying, people were running from the building. But once they managed to get outside they looked up to watch as the fire continued on its path of destruction.

"Manta, where are you going!" Yoh asked, grabbing his friend by the back of his collar.

"BLECK! Getting away! Are you trying to kill me?" Manata replied loudly and shaking with fear.

"Don't worry, you're not going to die. You're not in the fire. Amidamaru, would you look through the building?" Yoh asked, a fierce look was on his face.

"Yoh what are you planning?" Kagome asked, he'd had that same look on his face the last time something insane happened like on their beach trip.

"Well if anyone's in there I'm going to help." Yoh replied a little sheepishly, before they booth looked up as they heard Amidamaru's yell that there weren't any people in the building but that there were children trapped upon the roof.

As soon as he started off, he was yanked back and he could feel Kagome's hands on his shoulders and power seemed to be flying around him in an array of colors more specifically blues and greens. Kagome studied him closely before pinching his cheek he was surprised when it didn't get squished between her fingers. "Okay… now you can go."

Yoh blushed, slightly when her hands finally left his body before turning and bolting through the throngs of people to the stairs. He could hear several of the men yelling at him to stop that there was nothing to go into the fire for, but they didn't know about the children and he wasn't going to let them die like that.

"Amidamaru, find the best path to get through. Did you see any of the fire trucks?" Yoh asked, dodging a falling timber.

"The street is congested, by the time they get here it would be too late. This is the best path." Amidamaru** veered **off and Yoh only followed, being careful not to stand in the flames for too long. To be honest he was surprised he couldn't even feel the heat of the fires anymore.

"Yoh!" Amidamaru swore before merging with his partner to break through the ceiling and taking the hand railing of the stairs to use as a sword. "This is becoming dangerous."

"I know Amidamaru, but we're close! And this world doesn't need more angry spirits." Yoh replied, as he finally made it to the roof. Swinging the makeshift sword, the water tank atop the tower busted, sending a shower of water down through the open door into the fire and over the edges of the building. The three children were very much relieved, after everything was said and done he promptly disappeared back down the building and away from the scene.

The three of them enjoyed the rest of the day and never noticed that they had a follower, a boy from China had come to see his competition. According to the charts of his home a new era would dawn and they would be allowed to manipulate the future, the boy needed strong spirits and he found a strong one in Amidamaru. The only question was how to acquire said spirit, he certainly couldn't wait to catch him.


	6. Introducing Ren

I don't own Inu Yasha or Shaman King they belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Hiroyuki Takei.

**For those of you who watched (instead of reading it) Shaman King might I just ask a question, someone recently sent me the English version. Why does Ren/Len have an English accent if he was born and raised in China? Just curious?**

**On another note I'm looking for another Beta to help me with sentance structure, grammar and spelling, anyone interested please PM me or send me a email.**

Chapter 6

Kagome sighed, it was nice to be home from vacation though she would be the first to admit that Yoh had scared her when he'd gone into that flaming building without a thought to the rest of them. Thankfully Amidamaru had gone with him and it seemed as though he had no ill effects from his time in the smoke laden building. It didn't stop Yoh from getting a scolding, and amusingly enough it wasn't Kagome or Manta that gave the scolding, it was her grandmother and father that got on to the other boy about not being so reckless and that his life was important to the family of the Higurashi shrine. Yoh had blushed more than Kagome had ever seen before and the younger girl had happily teased him about it.

Today was one of the last days of August and they would soon be returning for the second trimester of school, and Kagome could honestly say that she was saddened that they wouldn't have as much free time as they had before. They were headed out to eat again and Kagome couldn't wait to see her friends, though she was going to have to drop Souta off at Shippo's house along the way.

"Souta hurry or I'll be late meeting with Yoh!" Kagome huffed, as she leaned against the wall of the stairwell at the bottom of the Shrine steps.

"You know you're always talking about him, sis…Are you guys going to get married?" Souta squinted at his older sibling. Kagome talked a lot more about Yoh than she did Manta and she spent more time with Yoh. Then again ever since they had started training together under their father and grandmother's eyes both members of his family had become more relaxed. That his father brought their mother home much more often now that he'd perfected the tablet he need to his Mama had been helping Yoh and Kagome as well, apparently the two of them were roughly at thirty or forty percent integration and their mother was pleased with the progress.

Kagome blinked in surprise before staring down at her little brother, "Souta had papa said something to you?"

Souta shook his head, "No. You just spend a lot of time with Yoh, you don't spend as much time with me anymore." The last part was mutter the younger boy didn't want to admit it but he was very jealous of Yoh. Then again it seemed like since Kagome had turned thirteen this year she was always busy doing something and when she had time to relax she'd rather be with the older boy than with him.

The dark haired priestess turned shaman frowned, before nibbling on her bottom lip "I'm sorry Souta. It's just this is the first time I've really had friends that are my age and that actually like me for being me. I should spend more time with you, maybe we can do something this Saturday just the two of us after classes yeah?" Kagome asked, getting a brilliant smile from her baby brother. He was only six and he was used to being to only important person in her life, the lack of attention was probably bothering him more than he was willing to admit. Once they arrived outside of Shippo's home Kagome waiting on the sidewalk and watched as her brother disappeared inside.

Content that her baby brother was in a safe place, Kagome took off to Madnalt which happened to be Yoh's favorite burger place. As much as Yoh was peaceful that didn't stop him from wanting a hug hamburger or other good food. In fact it was relatively amusing to watch the older boy chow down, and if it was good Yoh would eat anything as long as his taste buds agreed with his eyes.

"Yoh, Manta!" Kagome grinned when the two turned to look at her before she slipped into the both beside Yoh. She'd missed them, for the last week her shrine had held a Rice Festival, it had been a good bit of fun but the cleaning up bit afterwards was always such a hardship trash go stuck everywhere and it took forever.

"Hey, Kagome maybe you can talk some sense into Yoh!" Manta was looking harried and just a touch panicked as if he was worried about something. This was generally a natural state for the extremely short boy, the blonde was almost always in a state of Panic and the two of them had gotten used to it.

The raven haired girl frowned, "What are you talking about Manta?" Sometimes the small blonde made mountains out of mole hills such as when the two of them went all out against one another while training.

" I met someone in the cemetery last night. He called himself Ren, than he told me to give a message to Yoh. He said he wanted to take Amidamaru." Manta couldn't help himself, the worry that was gathering in his chest seemed to explode as he twisted in his seat. The older boy always felt a bit guilty for accusing Amidamaru in such a manner when they had first met.

"Oh…Ah, well I don't know a Ren…I mean this person could be from anywhere Manta. There is little point in becoming panicked of terrified; Shamanism in any form comes with all sorts of dangers. Like other shamans, certain spirits, demons…anyone of these things can cause death or general disfigurement, getting worked up about another human won't help Yoh in the it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that the shaman in question saw Yoh and Amidamaru. And well Amidamaru is probably one the most powerful spirits I've seen. The only other spirit I know with such a strong will would be Go-chan or Sesshoumaru…it's highly unlikely there are any more powerful spirits like the three of them in Tokyo." Kagome replied easily, before looking at her friend out of the corner of her eye. Yoh as usual was taking things as they came, and for someone who had a lifestyle like theirs it wasn't that surprising. Neither of them would have to worry about the harder part of life until several years from now, Kagome had a wide network of family that would inherit before her. While Yoh had enough older family that his father and mother would take over the Asakura shrine several years before he did.

Yoh grinned at the girl sitting next to him that was exactly what he had wanted to hear, there was no reason to freak out until the time came or Anna showed up. Since neither of those things had happened yet then there wasn't a reason to lose his head at least not yet. He had other things to worry about he at least wanted to graduate from middle school, though with the way things were going he wasn't sure that going to happen.

Manta simply looked at the two of them as if they had lost their minds, then again nothing ever seemed to faze them whether it was an upcoming test or ghosts that were trying kill each other or them. The small blonde couldn't fathom being so nonchalant about life, but he'd met most of Kagome's family and he had to wonder if this wasn't how they dealt with all the horrible things that came that way.

"So you think that could be after Yoh?" Manta finally asked, trying to wrap his head around the idea. Would someone really go after Yoh just for a another spirit, that seemed silly to him and he couldn't understand the idea behind it.

"No, they'll be after Amidamaru. Yoh will just be in their way." Kagome huffed at the idea her cheeks puffing up with air until a poke from Yoh had he jumping.

"I'm excited to meet him actually, and I'm sure Amidamaru is curious about his Chinese war lord yeh?" Yoh asked looking over at his Partner that was seated on one of the half walls that surrounded the seating in the restaurant. Yoh's grin just got larger when Amidamaru nodded in agreement.

"The two of you are going to have to be careful," A voice rung out from Amidamaru's shoulder. Go-chan had recently discovered she could change her form at well and often times appeared to be a smaller simply so she could ride on the tall samurai's shoulders. In her larger form she tended to get piggy back rides because she'd turn those large green puppy eyes on the spirit and he had a hard time saying no to his friend. "The Chinese don't look at things the way we do Yoh. Many of them aren't the least bit worried about what the darker arts can do to a person."

The sudden quiet that passed over the young teenagers was reflective before they all heard a horribly loud commotion outside the restaurant. Several of the patrons were pointing outside, and commenting on the trouble that seemed to be brewing. Eventually the three of them shared a glance before the three of them stood to find a young boy about their age surrounded by four men all of them looking rather angry.

"That's him! That's Ren!" Manta looked horrified at the idea of the boy in front of them while Yoh and Kagome could only share a glance before turning their eyes back onto the Chinese boy in front of them.

The Chinese boy was surrounded and the older men were obviously angry by their facial expressions. Eventually the lot of them attacked and the boy responded in a brutal fashion, neither of them could hear Ren but the utter hate and rage that was easy to see on his face worried Kagome and made Yoh rather sad. Both them had to wonder at what caused this feel to occur in someone their age. Neither felt the need to say anything, but they both nearly shouted when one of the men who had been defeated crawled into his car and drove straight at the small foreign boy.

Instead Ren reacted in a way that neither of them expected, he integrated with the spirit on his person and sliced the large van in two. Everything had been split cleanly into separate halves, even the surfer board that had been tied to the top of the van was in two pieces. What was horrifying was when the boy turned on the man who's managed to get out of the van, if Yoh hadn't reacted as quickly as he did the man in question would likely be dead.

Kagome was horrified that Ren thought that other humans were nothing but vermin, something that was beneath him. What about his spirit, Bason was once human did he give him such little consideration as well? Instead she found herself on the sidelines with Manta yet again while Yoh jumped right into the action. Her heart seemed to explode with terror as he spoke about purifying the world and demanding Yoh's spirit. Why didn't Ren see that they were people just like them? Her mother was still her mother, even if the woman no longer had a body to hold and care for her.

When Manta began asking questions, Kagome honestly had no answers for him. She'd never seen someone with the ability of a shaman act like this. It was almost as if the boy was a mad dog. Kagome had to muffle a scream when Ren began the same attack on Yoh that he'd used on the van, if it hit it could slice Yoh in to or take of a limb.

Instead Yoh forced himself to parry the attack, deflecting it to his side were it sliced through the guard rail that surrounded the road. She could see and hear Ren badgering him about the fact the Yoh was so much weaker, and that Amidamaru could do so much better. Kagome couldn't help but wonder and the bitter words that seemed to hide enough acid to kill someone.

When Ren slashed viciously again with his earlier attack he managed to strike Yoh, this time doing a good bit of damage and blood seemed to fly. Kagome thought her heart was going to stop before she felt herself began to shove past people in her way, as Ren continued to jaw on and on about how Amidamaru was his Kagome could just feel a rush of angry run through her. What if he was talking about Go-chan like that? It was bad enough he was talking to Yoh and Amidamaru but the bond between a

Shaman and their close partner was exactly that it was an equal relationship almost like a marriage.

` The way Ren treated that bond was sacrilegious and she knew that her family would be horrified at the way this boy talked. Instead, Kagome felt her own energy starting to charge and lace with the air around her, "Don't you dare say that! Amidamaru isn't just a possession! He was a human, just as much if not more so that you. How dare you treat the bond like that, you aren't going to touch either of them again!"

Kagome's anger seemed to spike while Goshikinboku's eyes narrowed with anger as well, the tree spirit honestly cared about the younglings that trained under the boughs of her branches on a daily basis and for once she was in complete agreement with Kagome. This little shit stain wouldn't be touch their friends again, at least not if they could help it.

With the anger fueling them, the tree spirit took control of the wildly waving energy and instead whipped at the boy in anger leaving behind several welts. Neither of them wanted to kill the foreigner but they didn't want him anywhere near Yoh either.

Ren on the other hand was treating it much like a joke, laughing at the idea that a small girl like the one in front of him could do much. The raven haired girl looked weaker and softer than Yoh did at least to him, the spirit she was using on the other hand was terribly powerful much like Amidamaru. Very few ghosts except earth spirits could manifest plants or even weather to such a degree. "Both of you are pathetic! How could either of you utilize the tools you have? You need to completely dominate the ghost or spirit to ensure that they are used to 100% of their ability. But the two of you are pathetic, two friends fighting over the same body can never work together 100%."

"You obviously have never had very good friends!" Kagome replied, huffing before she kneeled down beside her friend. The whipping vines were keeping the Chinese boy at bay and for that Kagome was grateful, "Yoh.." The young shaman girl in training couldn't help but look over the boy for more wounds beside the obvious one to his shoulder; they were going to be in so much trouble if this was recorded by someone. Things like this were supposed to be done out in the open, suddenly a calloused hand was wrapped around her wrist.

Yoh's eyes were open and he couldn't help but look at his friend with open affection, it was just like her to get pissed off about someone getting hurt or badmouthing a friend. Kagome was a very sensitive person she felt more for people than she did for herself and that was what made the girl such a good friend. The raven hair girl was always looking out for other people even if it cost her something else, "I have this, go back with Manta kay?"

"But Yoh!" Kagome was more than ready to object further when the look in Yoh's eyes stopped her. There was such determination in those eyes of his, she'd never seen that expression on his face before. "Fine, the more you get busted up the more you have to explain to Souta and Granny!" With a huff, Kagome flounced away though the expression on her face wasn't the least bit angry. The Higurashi child could secretly admit that she was proud of Yoh, and relieved that he wasn't just passively letting things go as he normally did.

"And you, Amidamaru isn't a tool or a machine. I'd rather send him on to heaven then allow you to touch him or try to force him into something he didn't want!" Yoh scowled, he really would have lost his arm if it hadn't been for Amidamaru and he knew that Kagome was going to fuss the whole way home. In fact he probably wouldn't be able to go home for weeks if it was left to his friend.

Ren scowled, before charging forth again this time only to be stopped by Amidamaru himself. The old Samurai had been quiet for most of the speaking between the two of them and it made him feel warm that his friends would be so protective of him. Instead the old ghost nodded to his partner before wordlessly integrating, they were both confident that this wouldn't be the end because they wouldn't let it.

As Ren carried through with the vicious strike, Yoh blocked the attack with apparent ease something neither Kagome nor Manta had seen before and they were used to the spars that were held at the Higurashi grounds. It was easy to see that the foreign boy was just as surprised as they were which was a good thing,

Yoh went on smirk, his eyes were much sharper than either, Kagome or Manta were used to. There was a narrowed understanding behind them that made Kagome stand up and take notice, "If Amidamaru and I are 100% united in thought than we can use 100% of our potential."

Kagome had to pause at the, with a hundred percent of your potential there was no telling how much of your energy you could pump into and attack. Then Yoh's entire standing had changed and she had to realize exactly how much of his body Amidamaru was control, it wasn't just one of them the rigidness implied that they were holding onto their control with a tightness she'd never seen before.

"That's the fighting stance the had Amidamaru called a fiend, it's also called the Tatha-Gata!" Manta was more than a little amazed as to what he seeing. In all honesty this was a lot like a historian's wet dream, you had a Chinese war lord and a Japanese samurai clashing together in the bodies of teenagers.

With the violent cross strike from each of the pipes he was holding, Yoh put the Chinese boy down. He wasn't dead by any means but he was seriously injured enough that he would more than likely would leave them alone at least for a while. Yoh on the other hand was panting in pain, and it wasn't surprised moving in such a way had more than likely aggravated his wound horribly.

Manta could only watch with a small smile as Kagome once more rushed toward the boy fritting like a mother hen worried over her chicks. Kagome worried over both of them constantly and while it was a nice feeling it relieved him a lot to know most of Kagome's fussing tended to be over Yoh's tendency to get into trouble like now. Looking at the ground he could only think over things that he'd seen, Kagome had pulled up vines…through the pavement, Manta had even been able to see her energy whipping around her with anger. Manta had to ponder exactly how much power was locked away in that little body of hers.

"Yoh, you you…you idiot." Kagome was frowning at him, though it was easy to see the worry and care in her eyes. That was something Yoh was sure she would never be able to hide, the small girl currently holding him up. His uninjured arm was wrapped around his shoulders while Kagome had both arms around his waist to keep him from falling. Going one hundred percent with Amidamaru had tired him out much more than he thought, so with the amount of skill that she possessed Kagome got the lot of the out of there.

By the time the three of them got to the Temple Yoh was beginning to lose consciousness, and Kagome knew she couldn't help Yoh by herself or Manta would just be left with two unconscious bodies. So at the foot of the Temple she ordered Manta to find her father or grandmother, because she wasn't strong enough to move Yoh anymore by herself.

Within minutes, Kagome's father was rushing down the steps terrified at the amount of blood that seemed to be covering his daughter. Once the man was calm enough, he gently picked up the boy his daughter had befriended and easily carried him up the stairs. Kagome had been coming out in the last few months, the shyness that had taken over after Hua had passed on had receded. The firey spunky personality that Kagome had grown with for the first several years and regained control and he and his mother could only watch as Kagome seemed to bloom with power and joy.

Setting the boy on the couch he quickly removed the shirt that generally hung open, Yoh was a kind boy and the fact that someone had hurt him so badly made Haru's blood boil. The shrine head new this day was coming, the shaman tournament was coming and more than likely both Kagome and Yoh would make it into the damned thing. So many people died in the tournament or came back broken, and it had been years since the beginning was held in Tokyo.

The wound was deep but it needed to be cleaned before anything could be done about healing, all the priestess powers in the world wouldn't help an infection that was below the skin. Haru could only sigh when his youngest son looked on with fear, he could see and probably smell the blood giving a quiet order the older man could only smile when Souta rushed up the steps.

"Otou..is it very bad?" Kagome had finally caught up with them as had Manta. Both were fretting about Yoh's condition and Haru wasn't the little bit surprised. Instead he shooed the two of them away while he worked on cleaning the boys wound out, but not before urging Kagome to find her grandmother.

Once the patter of feet indicated that his daughter had run off, Haru could only sigh "Manta what was he hit with?" The older man could only ask, it wasn't the norm but many shrines offered Holistic healing they were just one of many. Because of it, the temple was full of medical supplies making it easy for him to tend the youngster. Rinsing the wound he could only sigh, thankfully the edges went jagged in fact they were strangely smooth, but the wound was a bit long and rather deep.

"Ah umm…Yoh was struck with a Pudao." Manta flinched that sounded awful, or it sounded like Kagome's weapon. But Kagome would never take the chinese weapon from the Shrine unless given permission by her grandmother and father.

"I see and can you tell me who exactly hit him? This was meant to kill…not just harm." Haru had seen enough broken bones and bruises and injuries in general to know what was kill strike, he'd been trained extensively in many things fighting and healing were just two parts of being Head of a Temple.

"A boy named Ren, he told Yoh he was going to take Amidamaru away. Yoh was being a smart mouth and Ren got pissed, but honestly Ren just seemed like he was insane." Manta could only answer honestly as he watched Kagome's Father. The first thing the elder man had done was remove Yoh's jacket followed by rinsing the area with water to get a good look at what had happened and it had surprised Manta at the wound. It started and the outside curve of Yoh's shoulder then went down and across stopping in about the middle of Yoh's pectoral muscle. It had cut into the muscle but had not his a vein of any bone.

Haru simply sighed, shaking his head before picking up another bottle that he had grabbed this one was full of a saline solution that would disinfect the injury and ensure that nothing like dirt or germs stayed inside. The older man found himself smiling when he heard his mother and daughter fussing as they walked together, his mother had more than likely managed to get Kagome to calm down enough so she wouldn't think the boy was going to die on her.

Moving out of the way he listened to his mother tutting, a frown on her face at the damaged to the young shaman. He knew that face, his mother was angry and more than likely willing to hunt down whoever did this and make them pay, that was one thing that had always scared him about miko's and ensured that he never married one. They had to know how to cast curses to destroy them, and both the females of his family excelled in that area in training as well as purification and exorcism

Haru could only watch along with Manta and Souta as the wound began the slow process of healing. By the time they were finished he knew Yoh would have a scar, but instead of a gaping wound there was just an extremely large scab. Looking at the boy, Haru found himself amused they would want Yoh to be still as possible until the wound healed more with would take several day, as such he'd be able to lay about and do nothing which was exactly what Yoh loved to do. Chuckling to himself at the idea, Haru once more lifted the sleeping boy up to deposit him into a bed. Once out he quickly shooed his family away it wouldn't do to have them aggregate the boy when he was going to be out of it for quiet awhile.

Kagome went still before her father simply sighed and nodded, at the was all the teen needed to see before stealthily slipping into the guest room that truly and well belonged to Yoh. The older boy had clothing and many of his CD's that he left at their house, Yoh even had a toothbrush, hairbrush and a spare set of headphones. It always amused her to see the things that so easily made up Yoh here and scattered about her house.

Sighing Kagome sat down on the bed beside him, the raven haired girl could only take a deep breath before taking a warm hand in between her own. The young girl didn't even notice when she started rubbing the back of said hand, nor did she recognize the fact that both her parents and brother had walked by to check on them . The need to worry just ate her up inside in the worse way possible, then again she tended to let things get to far too easily at least that was what her grandmother said. They were both going to have to get stronger, if Ren was a small example of what could hurt them then they would both need to train.

Sighing to herself, Kagome shivered before sliding under the covers Yoh wouldn't care he never did and she would know considering how often she used the taller boy as a pillow. Huffing, Kagome propped her head on Yoh's uninjured shoulder and promptly began to plot of ways to help the two of them get even more into shape. Poor Yoh wouldn't know what hithim.


	7. Revelations

I don't own Shaman King or Inuyasha, they belong to their respective owners and I'm making not profit from this adventure.

Okay for my own piece of mind,

Kagome is 12

Yoh, Manta, Anna are all 13

It is currently August. Thus they had known each other for almost 6 months…ohhh!

Since I can't seem to remember to respond to all of you lot answers shall be slapped up here till further notice.

**This has not been beta-ed, feel free to point out issues but if you are not specific I'm not going to hunt for them. I do my best to make corrections by re-reading what I have written hopefully I've caught some if not most of my mistakes. If any one feels up to being a beta, I have MANY chapters you can fix up for me.  
**

Chapter 7

Yoh groaned, god that had hurt far more than anything he had expected. There was something very wrong the Chinese boy of that he was certain. Besides the fact that the boy was swing a Pudao around in broad daylight, there was such anger and rage burning in the smaller boy. In all honesty the feeling of Ren's energy made him shudder were as Kagome's made him feel comforted and at peace.

Shifting slightly Yoh could only hiss at the feeling that was produced at the pull of his shoulder. Deciding that movement wasn't needed at the moment he began to study what was around him, it was mildly surprising to see that he wasn't inside a hospital. In fact it was rather pleasantly surprised to find himself in the Higurashi guest room, which had become his own personal second bedroom. What wasn't usually in his bedroom was the body cuddled up to his own, Kagome at some point had crawled into bed with him. An arm was thrown haphazardly across his chest while there legs were rather tangled together. Looking closely at the face that was so near his own a shot of guilt seemed to rise up in the pit of his stomach, it was easy to see tear marks from where she had been crying.

Whenever Kagome was upset it always made Yoh feel bad, recently it had also made him want to go hide in a corner. Unlike Anna who took her anger out on him physically, Kagome would go find one of the wooden dummies used for combat practice and shoot arrows at them. It was also rather disturbing to know that Kagome had an older cousin who was better than Kagome was with arrows, she also had two younger cousins that used bow staffs. From the way she talked about them, Kagome disliked the twins with a deep loathing.

Yoh simply sighed, he could wake the younger girl up but there was little point as he didn't have anywhere to be. Though it was a bit curious that they hadn't taken him to a hospital, if it had been left up to Manta that was more than likely were he would have ended up. Grumbling lightly, he ignored the time before pulling up the covers more tightly around the two of them. It was still very dark so either it was early morning or the middle of the night. Closing his eyes, Yoh drifted off to sleep it would be a be a while before he woke up again, when he did the pleasant comfort he'd lived in the last few months would be at an end.

Yoh yawned sleepily, something was going on and Kagome was no were to be seen. Looking toward the left he gave a small frown at the clock, it wasn't to terribly early just a bit past eleven. The strange thing was that something had woken him up, it wasn't normally noisy at the Higurashi household. The place had been reinsulated several months before the family had moved back in after their time at Hokkaido, the fact that he could hear shouting was very odd indeed.

Checking his shoulder, Yoh could only sigh in relief at the lessened pain. As much as Yoh liked lying around and doing nothing being in discomfort the whole time would just ruin it. Haru-san, and Kaede-ba-chan didn't yell, it just wasn't something that their family did, in fact Haru had once told him it was a sign of uncouth ignorance. They might get loud but they didn't yell, it was mildly infuriating to argue with someone who didn't seem to be affected by the argument in any way shape or form.

Struggling, the brunette could only give a sigh of relief once he was in a position to get out of the bed. It was a large feathery bed and often times the young teen just liked to snuggle down in the plush bedding, at the moment he was a bit too curious to see what was happening. Looking about Yoh found a pair of decent sweat pants before looking at the shirt he was in, for the moment it was acceptable.

Opening the door, Yoh looked about before trotting down the hallway to the stair well before heading outside. The commotion was coming from outside, a frown seemed to appear on his face one of the voices belongs to Manta in his high excitable chatter and another belonged to Kagome. Just before going outside he found himself being eyed by Kaede before the elderly woman simply opened the door, the two of them walked out. Yoh could only stare wide eyed, his worst enemy had just walked onto his holy land. Anna was scowling fiercely, while Manta was beginning to cower behind Kagome. Several more gestures and comments seemed to run through the air both girls not bothering to hide their dislike of each other, and then everything went still. The sound of skin connecting with skin at a high speed rung out the air, Anna had just slapped Kagome.

Instead of saying anything, Yoh subtle glanced at the elderly woman beside him. The angered face that she was making caused him to want to hide in a corner. Instead he waited a few moments before his eyes widened when Kaede-ba-chan began moving rather quickly, Yoh could only cringe on the inside. Following at a much slower pace he arrived, to see a large bruise beginning to form on Kagome's cheek while Kaede was giving Anna a verbal dressing down. Yoh wasn't sure that he'd ever seen the girl ashamed of anything, but behaving in such a manner around another spiritual family caused all sorts of problems.

"Let me tell you one thing young lady. Just because the majority of us don't live like the Asakura's doesn't make it the least bit respectable to act in such a way on any shrine! Just because the family may or may not have lost the abilities their family was born with doesn't mean they all have! If you are an Itako as you claim, I'm sure the spirits of the hill including my daughter told you that this place was still considered holy. Such arrogance is unbecoming in someone with the gifts, and I'm sure to talk to Kino about this insolence. The girl you so happily slapped is my granddaughter and training in both shamanism, and the path of the miko. She is also the current heir to one of the many Higurashi shrines!" Kaede continued, while Anna didn't seem to know how to respond to such actions.

"Yoh, what are you doing out of bed?" Kagome finally asked him rather softly. The bruise on Kagome's face was starting to stand out greatly against her lightly tanned skin, it was going to look horrible in the morning.

"I'm fine what about you and Manta?" Yoh asked, his face was rather serious with worry. Anna was always willing to harass someone into submission or at least she had been when they had been children. The fact that she'd just grown to be more physically abusive wasn't something he was looking forward to, though it was a bit nice to see her cowed by something or in this case someone.

"Yoh is she really your fiancée?" Manta finally asked, the rude girl didn't seem too much care about Yoh as a person. She seemed only interested in what he could get her when he became the shaman king, whatever that was. Manta had come over very early in the morning to go through more of the scrolls that gave a varied history about Japan and other surrounding nations when he'd heard a commotion outside. Being the curious person that he was Manta went forth to see what was going on, the barriers in the shrine was amazing and almost seemed to be sentient. Kagome had told him about the fact that the barrier itself was tied to lay stones all around the property, and that ever generation or so would add their energy to it. Each person had a different energy and was a different person, because of that it left little notes of the different people that had added to it, this allowed the barrier to evolve and have something of a personality.

Both of his friends watched as Yoh's expression seemed to collapse in on itself, when he'd been a little boy he hadn't really understood the significance of being engaged or falling in love with someone. Now that he was older and could think about such things in a proper manner, Yoh could only say that he regretted saying yes as a child more than ever. He loved Anna, but he wasn't in love with her. Anna was closer to a bossy annoying older sister that enjoyed beating up her younger sibling because she could.

"I guess? There was a verbal agreement between my family and my grandmother..but it's not written in stone if that's what you mean." Yoh shuddered he wasn't about to tell his grandmother or Anna that he wasn't interested in marrying the girl. He could only think about the sort of chaos that would be brought down around his head if they suspected anything. All three of them were pretty much looking at the other and ignoring the anger ranting that Kaede was putting the other girl through.

" I think we should go back into the house, you probably need to rest more Yoh." Kagome stated softly, Anna was still looking at them with a great amount of dislike. Kaede on the other hand had dismissed the girl, with a warning not to come back or suffer the consequences.

Yoh simply groaned, while Manta muttered before turning back to the room of History that contained more information than he knew what to do with. Yoh simply nodded before heading back to his room, he wasn't terribly certain what was going on with Kagome but she seemed to want some alone time. The brunette could admit that even just the movement down the steps and the little walk outside had left him rather exhausted.

Kagome watched him go it was a good thing that she had been outside that morning, Anna had simply marched into the personal space of the shrine without a by your leave and had made to enter their home. Kagome had spoken rather rudely to the girl, but wasn't it considered to be rude to just up and walk into someone's house? This had of course turned to Anna insulting her, then continuing on that she needed to speak with Yoh. While stalling the older girl Kagome had gotten a lot of information about what was going on. Yoh had been sleeping for nearly two whole days, it had worried her so much when he wouldn't wake up the next morning. She and Amidamaru had come to a very good understanding with one another while Sesshoumaru and Go-chan had simply watched both seemed to have worried expressions on their faces.

Anna had spoken about Yoh becoming the shaman king, and her plans on being Queen. Kagome was certain that being shaman kind simply didn't work like that, not only that but Anna wasn't just an ordinary girl. She'd been trained to summon spirits from whatever plan they resided in. Invocation was something that took years of training and a steady hand, Kagome felt rather ordinary in comparison. Though she was very good at curses and counter curses, it still didn't feel like enough.

Kagome couldn't help but gnaw on her bottom lip, she knew it was a tale sign that she was nervous but in her own home she shouldn't have had to worry about such things. Anna had told her how weak Yoh was and that she intended to make him the shaman king, but was that even what Yoh wanted in his life? On more than one occasion, Yoh had talked about having a laid back life when he was an adult being a king of anything wouldn't allow the other boy to relax. The shaman tournament was at hand…what was she going to do? Did she want to compete?

Manta was probably off to look through the scrolls, some of them they didn't allow off the shrine grounds because of the mysticism that was hidden inside. Manta wouldn't tell anyone and for that Kagome was utterly grateful, huffing to herself Kagome made her way up to Yoh's room. They were going to have to talk. What had happened with Ren wasn't acceptable, if Yoh really wanted to enter they would have to change the way that they trained. Had her parental figures known that the tournament would be so soon? Hua had spoken to both of them about the fight and how it could affect the world around them. The last man to rise up had let the magical and spiritual worlds be forgotten, because of it there were fewer and fewer beings born with such power every year.

Slipping past her family, Kagome grabbed the tablet that held her mother before waving at both Go and Sesshoumaru. They needed to speak with one another, this was one of those things that needed to be seen to. Kagome knocked lightly on the door, before opening it to Yoh's voice. It was odd for someone like Yoh to move in a live with another family, but her father and grandfather were both extremely fond of the Asakura male so there was little hardship in having him live with them.

"Yoh…there are things we need to talk about.." Kagome paused, she really wasn't terribly certain what to say. It was one of those days, the ones were you cried all the time because things weren't working right…well it was one of those days for her. Yoh would probably pat her on the head while trying not to panic. "Is this what you want, I mean do you really want to be shaman king?"

Yoh sighed, "It's why I started training in the first place. When I was a child, my grandfather was constantly training me to be the best shaman that I could possibly be. My parents were always too busy with their own shamanic work, so it was really my grandfather and grandmother that raised me. I just wanted to be at peace in the mountains, I preferred talking to the spirits instead of giving them orders."

"Then you're going to have to train physically to be able to work through 100% Hyoi Gattoi…the only reason it worked last time is that you and Amidamaru are so in tune with each other. I only managed to work with Go-chan because we both wanted to protect you, I had no idea I could control nature when I integrated with her. I could barely get you to the shrine afterwards." Kagome frowned, she wanted to prove herself to the family as well. There had recently been a lot of jeering in her direction for taking after her grandfather and mother, though the comments about her mother were the most painful. There really wasn't any a school for children with spiritual abilities or Magic, it had been a long time since magic had been used in Japan; All that was left now was spiritual gifts. Though the Higurashi shrine still had masses of text for spells, very few if any had the ability to use them.

Yoh could only nod, though it was a bit odd even for him to have a council meeting were the majority of the participants were dead. Amidamaru, Sesshoumaru, Go-chan, as well as Hua were all listening and waiting there patiently. It was obvious that the two of them were going to need help, but it was worrisome that Anna was sent to get involved with his training.

"I still don't understand what happened, neither of you explained." Hua sighed, the other spirits could only look at the younger human woman with amusement. Go-chan was the oldest of them as a living spirit, she'd been alive before Sesshoumaru was even born. Followed by Sesshoumaru and then Amidamaru, even being the youngest of them Amidamaru was well over six hundred years old. Just because they had died didn't mean they stopped learning.

"Well, this Chinese shaman named Ren attacked me with a Chinese war lord named Bason," Yoh started, he wasn't sure if Hua wanted a play by play of what happened or not.

"Bason! Are you sure?" Hua looked worried and agitated which was odd for such a mild mannered spirit. Her thin hand flew to the tattoo behind her neck, a worried expression covered her face. "He wanted Amidamaru correct? Or one of the other spirits that he considered strong?"

The fluxing panic that seemed to run through the feminine spirit surprised them all, while Go-chan was looking more than a little knowing as if this was to be expected. But Go had many secrets, this wouldn't be the first Shaman tournament she had viewed and very much doubted it would be the last.

"Oka-chan, why does that cause you so much panic?" Kagome could only look at her mother with concern. It was strange to see her usually calm and dignified mother to behave in such an odd fashion.

"Oh, Kagome-chan there is so much you don't know about the shaman's of the world. I suppose something like this would happen to you," A quiet seemed too settled over the room. "On more than one occasion you've asked me about the tattoo on my neck because it always seemed so out of the ordinary. It's history is not something that I am proud of. I was originally a Tao by birth. The Tao name is well known in China but it once stood on the highest regard of respect it is now looked down upon with disdain. You see the Tao family is possibly the strongest shaman family that lived in China. Then they began to do things that would horrify our ancestors. The Tao clan as a whole are known as Daoshi, which is a shaman that animates a soul infused corpse. The spirits are then classified as Jiang Shi, hundreds of years ago it was a way to live on forever. It was in part servitude, and part immortality. Unfortunately one of the Tao master began to look upon the Jiang Shi as nothing but weapons and so began to kill and bind those who at one time volunteered to protect our family. Daoishi have become monsters in the eyes of China and many other lands…"

"What does that mean?" Kagome could only look at her mother with utter shock. This wasn't something that she had been expecting, it was like being hit from some were out of the ball park. She had cousin's that she didn't even know about, "I mean why did you leave?"

Hua sighed, "I was the secondary heir for the Tao clan, I was a Daoshi as well as the others. Kyo served me faithfully, and I refused to bind his spirit while he was mine. Eventually I fell in love with a martial artist. My family disapproved, my lover was killed and I left. I could no longer stand to be in such a hateful place. Ren is more than likely Ran's son, and the current heir to the Tao Clan. I ran into your father after that. Haru helped me stand up again, to find myself. I really couldn't help but fall in love with this kind man who could love me even after I came from such a monstrous clan as that."

"Ren is my cousin!" Kagome could only look up at the woman she'd always admired with something akin to utter horror. Ren was a monster in human skin! Or at least that was how he seemed to her, then again if what her mother said was true it was likely that her male cousin had been raised to hate.

Sesshoumaru snorted, "I think that you need to rearrange your priorities, Kagome-san. It was very dangerous for Yoh to integrate with Amidamaru as injured as he was. If he had been more physically fit, this wouldn't be such a great issue. Neither of you are in peak physical condition." The dog demon found human's to be mildly entertaining; Kagome and Yoh were like pups trying not to fall over their ears after the first transformation.

"Haru could help with that…I don't think it would be beneficial for myself, or Sesshoumaru to help in that aspect neither of us understand the limits of the Human body…Amidamaru could help, but when he was growing up there wasn't exactly a structured way of getting into shape." Go smirked slightly, an arm was haplessly thrown down across Amidmaru's chest while the other was absentmindedly resting across the back of his shoulders. If anyone could have seen the spirit they would have been surprised to see her floating in a straight line while using the old samurai as a prop to keep herself still.

Amidamaru simply snorted, that was the unvarnished truth. The samurai was concerned about this need to get in shape, as much as it would help with soul integration it would give them little time to do much else. Kagome would also have to forgo a lot of the things that she normally did for her family, like the cooking and cleaning. This would put a lot of pressure on Haru who was already almost constantly over worked as it was.

Hua simply sighed, "I think it would be best to talk to Kaede and Haru about what is happening…" Sesshoumaru simply nodded before slipping through the wall with ease. He wasn't really interested in talking with the two humans about getting the little ones in shape but he was becoming rather fond of the both of them. Hua rolled her eyes at the demonic spirit before following, really what was her husband thinking letting Kagome bring home a dog demon! It wasn't as if he was a puppy!

Kagome just huffed before crawling into bed, "You know this is possibly the weirdest day ever?"

Yoh simply eyed the girl that had crawled into the plush bed with him, he could understand that. He highly doubted that she had expected that sort of bombshell to be dropped. Then again he hadn't expected it either, it was a bit dramatic and he was beginning to feel like he was on some sort of strange soap opera that Anna liked to watch.

Shaking his head at the thought the two of them simply became silent in the warmth under the covers. Neither of them where terribly happy with this turn of events, eventually the two of them began to speak about what could possibly be coming in terms of the tournament. What would they be expected to do, what kind of danger this was going to bring them. Yoh could only question the idea of ignoring Anna as she was sure to take it out on him once he returned to his house after healing.

Both of the youngsters sighed, they were tired and it felt like they had been talking for hours. At some point during their conversation Go and Amidamaru had disappeared inside the samurai's tablet, which was something both of them were still to baffled to ask about. Kagome sighed softly, this had helped them work out the kinks that they felt needed to be discussed. This was probably going to be the most difficult thing that either of them had ever done.

O o O o O o O

It had been three weeks since their private conversation, and a second one that had followed the day after with Haru and Kaede. But both Kagome and Yoh were now working on physical fitness and neither of them were enjoying the process, because they needed to work every muscle group Haru had put them to doing all the house work as both the shrine, the shrine house, the housing for traveling monks and the onsen that Yoh lived at. They had unfortunately run into Anna there, the girl had called Haru and spoken with the older man, and had gleefully given the two of them even more odd jobs around the place.

Needless to say, both of them were exhausted every morning and school hadn't even started back and wouldn't until the start of the week. Other things that they had to learn was more physical one on one sparing, Haru rarely fought with his children, but in this case he worked both of them over with an intensity that sometimes scared the two of them. Hua watched on the sidelines with a worried expression on her face. After their physical work out, the two of them would have to use Hyoi Gattoi and see what they could do there. It was obvious that with as old as Go and Amidamaru were that they would have both physical and spiritual attacks that could cause great damage.

Figuring out the attacks was hard, using them were damn near impossible neither she nor Yoh were proficient enough to use them. It was also more than a little discouraging. It was a very slow but increasing thing, the morning runs did little to improve their moods, running even the five kilometer's with just five pounds was making Kagome ache, how Yoh managed with ten blew her young innocent mind. At least until time had passed, Kagome was now wearing fifteen pound weights while Yoh was wearing twenty.

Though being able to use the onsen that Yoh sort of lived at was a blessing most nights, Anna seemed to have made it her duty to slip in with Kagome on a regular basis. Neither girl was willing to talk to the other and they would often times leave both boiling with dislike of the other, never mind that they were two side of the same coin. They both wanted Yoh to succeed, they just went about it in different ways.

One thing that had finally been resolved happened to be the mystery of the Sesshoumaru's Kagome. It was something that should have only come out of a fairy tale. Kaede could remember being a little girl, and her mother speaking of Isamu's(Kagome's grandfather) aunt who Kagome was named after. The aunt in question was very dear to her grandfather's mother's heart but had died at a relatively young age, after falling into the dry well called the bone eater's well. The woman had been in her early twenties and had been rumored to be pregnant when she threw herself into the well, she'd become rather desperate to return to the past. None, but the woman's nieces and nephews had believed the woman. The head man of the shrine had called her to shame before sealing the well's power with an ofuda. Unfortunately when she jumped after finally escaping, the fall had killed her. The woman had been born in the 1894, which would explain why her speech and dialect had been so very different. She'd been born roughly 550 years after she'd meet Sesshoumaru, the demon spirit unfortunately mourned. He'd never expected such a fate for the woman he had loved, and Kagome nor Yoh new how to comfort the ailing spirit.

The most disturbing thing for Kagome was that she looked almost identical to the woman, the only true differences seemed to be height and the fact that Kagome had been born with brilliant blue eyes that were admittedly out of the norm for a Japanese family. Kagome had always attributed her blue eyes as a mutation from her mother's purple orbs, but that was apparently not so as the blue hadn't come from the Tao family either. Kagome honestly felt that there were more question now than there were answers. Many members of the family, talked badly about their family and it wasn't just her either. In retrospect, Kagome had left it to Amidamaru and Go to help the demonic spirit to overcome his grief and the three of them had formed something of a tight knit friendship that neither Kagome or Yoh felt comfortable intruding on.

This was how they lead to the current day, they had actually finished everything that had been required of them and they were both ready to do something besides work out or clean. Neither of them where really certain what to do and ended up spending the majority of the day with Souta, which the little boy was thrilled about. He was not the least bit pleased with the routine his sister had been on. Souta hadn't seen much of either teen because they had started sleeping at the onsen after using the heated spring to help relieve the ache in stiff muscles.

"Haahaa! I win again!" Souta shouted happily, he loved Mario Kart. Rainbow road was a major pain but after you practiced it enough it really wasn't so bad. He also liked some of the fighting games, and he'd noticed that Kagome and Yoh had gotten really good at them. Souta was just happy to spend time with two of his favorite people.

"Yeah yeah," Kagome pouted, once upon a time it had been easy to beat her baby brother at things like this but now it was incredibly hard. Then again if you didn't use it you apparently lost it.

"Are you guys ready for school?" Souta finally asked, he was excited about being able to see Souten and Shippo again. The two of them had become very good friends of his, though Souten's big brothers were very scary fellows.

"Ugh, I don't even want to think about school." Yoh just sighed, he was about tempted to just test out so he could quit. Kagome would get rather mad at him thought if he left her all alone, and perhaps because he would get ahead in training. That was one thing that was a little baffling to him, Kagome apparently had a very competitive streak and disliked being looked down upon. Which was probably why she had such large issues with being around Anna, Just some of the things that the blonde had said to Kagome's face and the verbal abuse was something that was slightly embarrassing on his part. Manta wouldn't even come around if he knew that Anna was going to be there before hand.

He did know that his grandmother had actually gone into the village and given Anna a chewing out for the way she'd behaved at the shrine, but that just seemed to justify her need to pick on the two of them. Yoh honestly cared about both of them but he wasn't near brave enough to stand between the two of them to make it stop, though Sesshoumaru had started growling every time they argued. It was a slight reprieve, Amidamaru and Go both refused to take sides though both seemed to support Kagome quietly on the side.

"I'm ready to sleep. It's about time to hit the hay isn't it?" Kagome asked, looking toward the clock in the kitchen. They would both have to be up at around 4:30 to get done with their early morning runs, before breakfast and then getting ready for school. It was sad when Souta stayed up later than the two of them, but the young kindergartener went to sleep at 10 and usually got up at 7 and was ready to leave around seven-thirty, he was getting plenty of sleep.

The three of them went separate ways but Kagome sleep was slightly interrupted when Souta crawled into her bed nearly three hours later.

"What's wrong brat?" Kagome asked sleepily, her eyes just seemed to be full of sand.

"Are you and Yoh really going to be in that big tournament?" Souta asked, a worried expression on his face. He knew more than he was supposed to because he kept listening in on his grandmother and father. They kept talking about how many of the people that went into the fight never came back out, instead they died with honor. He wasn't old enough to know what died was, but if it was what was wrong with his mother than Kagome wasn't allowed to do it.

"Yeap, were both entering I think. Miroku and Kikyo both sent me emails a few days ago, there both going to be entering to. So it's going to be really interesting to see how things go." Kagome replied, looking at her little brother with a slightly curious expression on her face.

"You can't be like, Oka-san, Kagome..I can't hug her!" Souta finally stated, tears were welling up in his eyes. He didn't want anything to happen to Yoh either because it would make his family and Amidamaru sad too, Souta would also miss the older boy and the time he always tried to put aside for the younger boy.

Kagome sniffled, she could feel her eyes welling up with tears at the statement. "I can't make any promises but I'll do my best to come home safe and sound so we can hug for as long as possible okay?"

Souta could only nod before cuddling into his older sister and that was how their father found them the next morning. Instead of saying anything, he left the two of them alone before telling Yoh he would be allowed to sleep in an extra hour which was met with a simple thumbs up. Haru could only chuckle, he would get the three of them up once breakfast was ready. For some reason he knew that today was just going to be one of those days.


End file.
